by Dayna Curry
Throughout the day on the twenty-seventh, we held our breath. Would we see our parents? Morning. Afternoon. Evening. “Well, there is still hope,” Dayna kept saying. This was her prison refrain.
After dark, Afghani came to get us. Afghani initially impressed us with his polished manner. He was very smooth and had the air of a real diplomat.
We were taken in shifts by nationality to the boss’s office. The Germans went first and met with a representative from their embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan. When Afghani came back, he took the Australians. I just about died waiting, but Afghani explained that by going last Dayna and I would have more time than the rest of the group. If this was the case, I was willing to wait as long as was necessary. We were the only ones with parents there to see us.
For the first time in a while I fixed my hair and put on makeup. I wanted to look somewhat refreshed so my dad would not be worried about me. My Afghan friends commented on my improved appearance. “Your eyes look beautiful,” remarked some of the girls.
When the time came, I could hardly get to the boss’s office fast enough. As I walked into the room, my dad was the first person I saw. He stood in the center of the room wearing khaki pants and a light jacket. He clapped his hands when he saw me, and his eyes watered with tears. He looked like a little boy whose only dream had come true. I ran to him. I could not believe I was seeing my father again. He had traveled so far. We wept together and hugged for several minutes. He drilled me with questions concerning my health, and I suggested we take a seat on the couch.
“Heather,” my dad assured me, holding my hand, “there are people on all levels of government working on your case. Your situation is a priority. People are working hard. I am going to stay in Kabul until I can take you home. Do not worry. You are coming home.”
He told me our detention had become big news in the United States. “Dan Rather went to your mother’s house,” he explained. “Matt Lauer called her looking for an interview.”
This news shocked me. Why did our nation care so much about two young aid workers in Afghanistan? Still, after living for weeks in an information vacuum, I was comforted to think that people outside were taking an interest. I hoped the pressure of media attention would encourage the Taliban to act favorably toward us.
The U.S. consul general to Pakistan, David Donahue, sat in the room with us. Donahue, as we affectionately called him, became a champion for us in the months ahead. A keen, persevering man, he stayed close to our parents for the duration of our captivity, applying all of his gifts as a negotiator at every available opportunity. In the midst of what became an international crisis, Donahue interacted with the Taliban with great grace and wisdom. We later learned—and were utterly thankful—that Donahue and the whole embassy staff in Islamabad worked around the clock trying to secure our release.
We only saw Donahue three times. He had been trying to gain access to us for some weeks and rejoiced with us at this first meeting. He told us he was on hand to facilitate relations with our parents, provide whatever information he could about the Taliban’s legal system, and ensure that our needs were met. He asked basic questions about food and our living conditions. I told him I needed lice medicine and that we badly wanted books to help us pass the time.
Dayna: Draped in a borrowed black chawdur, my mother sat down in a chair beside me in the boss’s office and proceeded to fill me in on the latest information: The television show Good Morning America had called my father. She also told me we were at the top of prayer lists all over the United States, which greatly encouraged me.
I was startled by how high-profile our case had become. I hoped the attention would lead to a speedy resolution of our plight, but I particularly felt pressure when I considered having to give interviews after our release. Some days later I told my mother that, oddly, I almost felt more anxious about facing the press than I did about our current straits in Afghanistan.
“The media says you have written a confession letter,” my mother remarked in this first meeting. I explained that we had written down the things we did on the day of our arrest—things like going to the Aamirs’ house, drinking tea, and showing a film. We had apologized for causing problems for the country. But we had not confessed to a crime.
Had I heard talk of a trial? my mother wanted to know. We had not been told anything about a trial on our end, and I dismissed the idea as mere speculation on the part of the press. Some news stories mentioned the death penalty as a sentencing option in our case, my mother noted, but she urged me not to worry about these claims.
My father, I learned, was prepared to fly to Kabul the minute I said the word. I told my mother to please thank my dad, but I did not want him to leave his job and spend all of the money such a trip would require. At that time, my dad’s presence did not seem necessary.
My mother also shared the devastating news that one of our chowkidars had been taken into custody. She thought the Taliban arrested our night chowkidar, but later we found out they had arrested Khalid.
Chris and Katherine Mason barely made it out of the country two days after our arrest, my mom reported. Two of our friends with another aid organization also evacuated to Peshawar because of their association with us.
Just a few days after this first meeting with our parents, the Taliban expelled the remaining Christian aid organizations from the country. Karim first gave us the news, then my mother mentioned the expulsion order during our parents’ next visit. She said the Taliban gave the organizations seventy-two hours’ notice to get out.
Heather and I struggled with real guilt after getting the news. Had we caused well-established humanitarian groups to lose the ground they had been working to gain for decades? Had we been reckless during a season when the Taliban were tightening the vise on religious minorities? The news was difficult to stomach. We prayed God would open the door for these organizations to return.
On August 30, Diana had a birthday and turned fifty-one. Her prayer was to be able to eat with Georg and Peter. Ursula wrote a note to the boss days in advance asking his permission to share a meal with the men. We did not expect to hear from the boss—often our requests went unanswered. But at about ten o’clock the night before the birthday, we heard his knock on the gate.
“You can meet together at six o’clock tomorrow morning,” the boss announced. He told us he was consenting to the meeting without permission from his seniors. In other words, he was doing us a big favor, or so he wanted us to think.
The next morning, a Talib led us to a conference room in the office building where Peter and Georg stayed. We were given more than an hour with our two friends. The Taliban brought us a cake that we had ordered from the bazaar. We carried our breakfast food—jam, cheese, cookies, and our morning bread. The atmosphere was light and optimistic.
Peter told us in his thick Australian accent that he had been wearing the same clothes for three weeks. Ursula often joked that we needed a translator to understand Peter through his brogue.
Heather: For Diana’s birthday dinner we ordered a meal from the Herat Restaurant, and on a lark we asked whether we could eat with the men in their room again that evening. At the last minute, the boss approved. Karim and one of his friends ate with us while the boss came in and out. Georg thanked the boss profusely for his graciousness.
When we returned to the courtyard at nearly ten o’clock, we celebrated Diana’s birthday by holding a big dance with the Afghan women. Mariam was gone that evening, and her stand-in, Lumya, an aged lady with few teeth, treated us leniently. Some of the girls got out the washtubs and put on a big production, while Lumya attempted to quiet us down. The boss would never permit such a commotion, and if he heard us, we no doubt would face some consequences.
More than thirty of us lined up along the wall in the women’s large room and created a dancing circle. The Afghan girls kicked off the celebration by throwing confetti on Diana. Then, while some of the girls played out complicated rhythms on the tubs, others took turns sh
owing off their dancing styles. Shalah demonstrated her dance moves (provocative by Afghan standards), which by that time I had mastered; the dance involved a lot of clapping, shoulder shaking, and finger snapping.
Silke entered the circle and performed a kind of slithery dance combining what looked like karate and ballet. Aida, our resident comedienne, got up and did her famous Talib impersonation, donning the outfit Nafisa had used to escape from Herat. For stage makeup, Aida used the soot off the bottom of a cooking pot to make a black beard and wore dark eyeliner.
Dayna danced furiously with Talib Aida, raising her eyebrows as if to flirt back and pulling out every Afghan move she had up her sleeve—mainly upper-body movements. The girls erupted with laughter. By the end of the evening, we all were in high spirits. Perhaps our circumstances might take a turn for the better, we thought.
Late the following evening, one of our prison guards delivered letters to Dayna and me. Our parents had sent them via the foreign ministry. We were so encouraged to receive any bit of communication from our loved ones, and I eagerly opened the letter from my father.
As I was reading, Dayna gasped, “Oh, my gosh!” Dayna rarely became unsettled, so I looked up.
“What is it, Dayna?” I asked. “What does it say?” She handed me the note. I read: “There is going to be a trial. It’s serious, so be prepared.”
Immediately, I realized our position had become much more precarious. Why did the Taliban want to put us on trial? To me it seemed the Taliban wanted to appear just in the world’s eyes while severely punishing us. A trial would add legitimacy to the sentence handed down, and no one would be able to dispute it.
I started to cry. I had been so encouraged after spending time with my dad and Donahue. ICRC had come; we had gotten to enjoy time with Georg and Peter. After daring to hope for the first time in a long while, I could not handle another blow: the idea of a drawn-out legal process. It was simply too much.
I cried for a long time. The man who did our shopping at the bazaar came to the courtyard several times to see about me. The Afghan women were concerned. Mariam tried to tell me everything was okay and not to be upset, but I became furious. “I am not playing that game,” I said sharply.
The next day Dayna and I met with our parents again. We understood we were meeting with our parents in five-day cycles for half-hour visits. The diplomats were not permitted to join us.
Without hesitation, I asked my father what he knew of the trial. I wanted to know what was really going on—no more sugarcoated talk.
“It is not going to be like a Western trial with a lot of witnesses,” my dad said, trying to comfort me. “You will be offered legal representation. We do not know much now, but we will find out more in the next few days.”
During that same meeting, I told the boss that my father would be having his sixtieth birthday in two days, on September 3. I would like to see my dad on that day, I said.
“Enshallah, Enshallah,” replied the boss. God willing, God willing. Over the course of my imprisonment at the reform school, I had come to discover that a response of “Enshallah” often indicated that my wish would not be granted.
September 3 came and went, and I did not get to see my dad. Nevertheless, I assembled a birthday present for him. The gift consisted of a stick of gum, a jalapeño pepper, a roll of Life Savers, and a beautiful card Silke had made, depicting the Kabul Zoo mural in our room. Silke sketched the card using the nubs of some colored pencils she had collected when we all went back to our houses in Wazir. Inside the card I tucked a letter and then slid both into an envelope. I tied the items together in plastic, using pink toilet paper for a ribbon. The Afghan women were fascinated by the gift and passed it around for a showing.
I gave my dad his present when I saw him at our regular meeting on September 5. As we talked, he left the gift sitting in his lap. When the boss gave the signal that our time was up, my dad fumbled at the card with his fingers. The boss gestured to Karim.
“He wants to know what you have,” Karim said.
“It is a birthday present from my daughter.”
Then the boss gestured, and a Talib came over and plucked the card from my dad’s hand.
The boss infuriated me. He had no compassion. I spoke unashamedly about his injustice.
“You will get it back on Saturday,” the boss rebutted. I did not believe him, and besides, Saturday was three days away.
“It is his birthday present!” I replied in Dari with a harsh tone. “You would not allow me to see him and now you are taking away his gift?” The boss was unmoved.
Karim and the boss convened for a moment. Then the boss instructed Karim to read the letter. Karim approved it and handed the letter, along with the card, back to my dad.
I later learned that the boss had returned the card only to placate me. As soon as my father left the building, one of the boss’s men came and took the card and letter away a second time, promising to return them both. My dad never saw that part of his present again.
twelve
ON PARADE
Heather & Dayna: On the morning of September 8, the boss came to the courtyard and, without indicating where we were going, told us to get ready. We suspected we were headed to the much-anticipated trial, though no Talib had ever mentioned a trial to us over the course of our detention.
Armed Taliban guards loaded us up into a van with Georg and Peter, and as usual, we brought Mariam, draped in her burqa, along with us. A caravan of four vehicles, teeming with armed men in typical fashion, assembled and pulled out of the compound. We drove through the city, passing Wazir, and slowed as we neared a government building. Foreign reporters and cameramen thronged the place. We had not seen foreigners—or cameras—in ages, and though we knew the media had taken an interest in our case, we were not prepared for this display.
Was our trial that important? we wondered.
Our caravan pulled through a metal gate into the government compound. When we got out of the van and looked back toward the street, we could see a multitude of paparazzi pressed up against the compound gate trying to photograph us through the bars from various angles. The experience struck us as rather surreal.
More reporters awaited us on the stairs leading to the front door. We were not quite sure how to act—do we show our faces, do we cover ourselves, do we just walk in? Nor were we certain we even wanted our pictures in the media. Halfway covering our faces, we huddled together and plunged through the mob into the building, following some armed Taliban guards.
One reporter yelled out, “Are you afraid?”
Heather: “Leave us alone,” Diana answered, wrapping her arm around me.
Heather & Dayna: Up two flights of stairs, we entered a red-carpeted hallway. All of the doors along the corridor were closed. Outside of one room were dozens of pairs of men’s shoes. The guards led us to a room at the end of the hall, and Mariam followed in behind. She took a seat in a chair near the door and never removed her burqa.
At this point, we had no idea what a trial before the Supreme Court of Afghanistan might entail. Would we be expected to take a witness stand and defend ourselves? Would they present evidence against us? We had not even been charged yet. We tried our best to square our testimonies with one another. Georg then led us in a time of prayer. Once again we needed to trust God to lead us through a morass of uncertainty.
Thirty minutes later, some men came and collected the eight of us, instructing Mariam to stay behind. As we proceeded back down the hall, we noticed that the door surrounded by the shoes now stood open. A mob of people, most of whom appeared to be foreign reporters, pressed up next to the door waiting to enter the room. We scanned the crowd for our parents and, to our relief, spotted them, along with Donahue and the German and Australian consular officers.
We entered the cramped room and made our way toward several rows of chairs arranged toward the front. The chairs faced a hardwood desk belonging to the chief justice. On the wall behind the desk hung a large frame
d prayer mat flanked by swords and a whip. In the front left-hand corner of the room stood a bookshelf lined with ornate leather-bound books. We passed a table displaying more heavy books on the way to our seats.
The eight of us sat in the first two rows of chairs. Our parents sat directly behind us so that we could hold their hands and pass notes. Donahue sat with them. Meanwhile, behind us the room was packed to the gills with reporters.
Eighteen justices sat in chairs forming a horseshoe around the chief justice’s desk. Most of the justices were elderly, white-haired men. Their faces wore grave expressions. Some massaged their prayer beads during the proceedings.
Once we sat down we were handed forms to fill out. As usual, there were places for each of us to fill in our name, father’s name, grandfather’s name, country, province, and village. In keeping with her practice, Diana filled in yet another name for her grandfather.
Next we identified ourselves by nationality for the chief justice, Mullah Noor Muhammad Saqib. The chief justice was a young man wearing an enormous turban and a long, dark, unkempt beard streaked with henna. His countenance was solemn. Though his eyelids seemed to droop, his manner was sharp and discerning. He had an air of sophistication and composure, and as we understood, he commanded great respect among his peers.
The proceedings opened with a prayer, after which the chief justice delivered a prepared speech in Pashtu assuring us that we would be given a fair trial and extolling the Islamic judicial system. His Pashtu, Diana later told us, was flawless, but he used a translator who in time proved to be inept, at least in the minds of a reporter or two. One spectator injected his own much-needed translations into the dialogue that ensued between the chief justice and our group.