Open Skies

by Niloofar Rahmani

  * * *

  To this day, my father won’t talk much about his time in the military. He is proud of his service and believes it made him stronger, but he didn’t want to fight. Moreover, he hated the Soviets and Russian occupiers. They devastated his country, indiscriminately killing innocent Afghans who were mostly women, children, and old men, and he wanted no part of it. Yet he had to wear the uniform and follow orders.

  They trained him as an infantryman and a driver and sent him to fight his countrymen in the mountains, on the plains, and in the valleys. His Afghan commanders and the Russian advisors were cruel, but in the field my father also witnessed the brutality of the rebels. No one wins in war, he learned, and all sides are victims. The innocent and the kind are the ones who suffer most; the young boys carrying the guns are often blown to bits by rockets and land mines.

  My father admitted to me that every day he feared he might be killed, and he was scared he’d never be able to go home and see his family again. The military didn’t allow him to go on leave to Kabul while he was in service; he was away for four long years. Even after my own service in the Afghan Air Force, it’s difficult to imagine being cut off like that, totally isolated from one’s family.

  I don’t press my father to tell me about these things. I think for him it’s like a bad dream. My father is a happy and gentle man, but the nightmares visit him on occasion. When they do, I can see the weight press down on him. Some things are better left alone.

  3

  Courtship

  My father finally came home in 1987, but a lot had changed in three years. Hundreds of thousands of people had been killed, mostly civilians, and millions of Afghans had fled the country as refugees. A generation of children were coming of age who knew nothing but war, and for those who stayed in Afghanistan, the economic situation was dire. Every family suffered.

  Yet there was hope, because my father would soon meet my mother, Tahera.

  When my parents describe their courtship, it sounds like a love story out of a romance novel. A boy spots a beautiful girl at a party, but he can’t go talk to her. The boy tells his parents about the girl, and they find a way to approach the girl’s parents. The two families debate whether the two young people should be introduced, if one or the other is good enough, and whether he or she is suitable. Agreements between households are eventually made and chaperones are designated. The girl is anxious about meeting the boy for the first time, perhaps not knowing what he looks like. And the boy is nervous too, having only ever seen her from afar. Questions about whether she will accept him fill his mind, and questions about whether she will like him fill hers. But once they finally meet, both boy and girl marvel at each other. Then . . .

  My father was twenty-three when he fell in love with Tahera. He said she was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, and he sensed that she was a pure and honest woman. He first saw her at an Eid al-Adha family ceremony, and as he told me in his own words, “She caught my breath and heart.” She stood five feet, seven inches tall, with long, dark, wavy hair; big, round eyes; and an alluring face, with gentle olive skin. That night she wore a red dress with black high heels, and my father knew she was the one right then.

  But according to Afghan culture, he couldn’t just walk up to her and say hello. He couldn’t go near her. It would have been very disrespectful. Therefore, after the party he asked a friend who was a relative of hers, “Who is this beautiful girl?” My father found out that her name was Tahera and that she lived with her family in the Kart-e-Say section of Kabul, not too far from my grandfather’s home.

  As soon as my father came home from the party, he told his parents about her and that she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. He’d never been around anyone like her before, and only in his dreams had he hoped to find such a wife one day. Just by looking at her and watching the way she moved and spoke with other people, he could tell that she was smart and passionate. It showed in her face, in her expressions and gestures, and in the intelligence in her eyes. She was perfect, and he knew it.

  My grandmother, however, did not approve of my father’s interest in this girl Tahera. She did not know her or the family, and would have preferred my father marry a girl from her own village. She wanted him to wed an extended family member, someone she knew and whose parents and relatives she knew. It was better if his bride was illiterate and uneducated, she thought. My grandmother wanted someone traditional whom she could control.

  My father didn’t want that. He didn’t want an arranged marriage to a girl he’d never seen before, or a relationship of convenience for the parents. He was not that type of person. He had too much will and too big of a heart.

  It took time and many conversations, but my father gradually convinced my grandmother to visit Tahera’s family home to discuss courtship. She was reluctant and expressed her reservations vigorously, but she finally agreed, giving in to the earnest pleas of her cherished son.

  Tahera’s family treated my grandmother with great respect on this first visit, and the family was amenable to future discussions about the potential union of Tahera and Nooragha. However, Tahera’s parents had one condition: Tahera must be allowed to finish high school before getting married. She had one year left.

  My grandmother, still hesitant about the union, nearly told my father that this was unacceptable. Although my grandmother had grown up during Afghanistan’s golden era, when girls were expected to go to school just like boys, she was still a very conservative woman and did not see the point of her son’s future wife graduating high school. It wasn’t as if Tahera would be working; her duty would be in the home, raising a family. And my grandmother certainly didn’t know that Tahera desperately wanted to be a journalist.

  My mother likes to say that since her first day of school, she dreamed of becoming a reporter, perhaps with an international news organization like the BBC, the Associated Press, or Reuters. She wanted to travel, meet people, experience the world, and then write about it. She’d been working hard at her studies to make this dream a reality, consistently being first in her class year after year. I suspect if my grandmother had known about my mother’s ambition, her opposition to the marriage would have been even stronger. There’d be no controlling a woman like this.

  Fortunately for me and all my siblings, my father persuaded my grandmother that he was deeply in love with Tahera and that she was his one desire. The courtship discussions continued, with each side learning more about the other, until a date was set for the two to meet.

  * * *

  As a daughter, I was naturally curious what my mother thought and felt during the back-and-forth between the families and the time before she actually met my father. I knew I might very well find myself in a situation similar to what my mother went through. Although the dream of flying had been with me since I was a little girl, it was still just a dream. I grew up in the 1990s under Taliban rule, and the prospect of becoming a pilot was a mere fantasy. I knew that, like my mother, I might be married at a young age—and I wanted to know what it had been like.

  When I was old enough, about nine or ten, to finally ask the right questions, the first thing my mother told me was that she had been scared—terrified, actually, which surprised me. I’d expected her to say she was nervous or hesitant, but not scared. But as she told me the story, I came to realize that my mother is also exceptional and brave.

  Unlike my father, who had seen my mother at a party from a distance, my mother had no idea who Nooragha was. She didn’t know what he looked like, what kind of personality he had, what his temperament was—nothing at all. She was completely in the dark, knowing only what her parents had told her, which they had only learned from my grandmother.

  Furthermore, my mother was deeply worried that if she married she would not be allowed to finish school or become a journalist. In Afghanistan, if a husband says no, that’s the end of it, and she was terrified my father might say no. Most Afghan men would.

  My parents were set to
meet on a Friday. The year was 1988, and the war was still raging, but the sun was shining and life in the city was relatively normal. My mother and her mother took a taxi to the Cinema Pamir section of Kabul. It was busy with traffic up and down Maiwand Road, with throngs of people walking across the courtyards, in and out of buildings, and through the alleys.

  Standing on the sidewalk, my mother searched the many faces in the crowd, a collision of curiosity and nervousness bubbling inside her. She’d never seen Nooragha, and she only knew what he might look like from her parents’ description, but her eyes eventually settled on a young man just a few feet away who was staring at her. My mother said that he was tall, with dark hair, and that he wore a black suit and carried a small handbag. She said she felt a tingle in her stomach and took hold of her mother’s hand and asked if that was him. Her mother responded gently, “Yes, that is him.”

  Looking upon Nooragha for the first time, my mother felt a sense of calm. Her heart stopped pounding, the butterflies in her stomach went away, and the fear tugging at the base of her mind disappeared. Something inside my mother’s heart told her that Nooragha was a good person.

  The introduction was brief, with my father and mother speaking to each other for the first time, exchanging anxious pleasantries. Then the three of them went to a nearby restaurant for lunch. My mother told me that she instantly felt at ease around my father and that he seemed honest, genuine, and kind. He also treated her own mother with great respect, and she knew right then that he was right for her.

  Within days of that first meeting, my mother’s family sent a letter to Nooragha’s family informing them that they approved of the courtship. A week later, Nooragha and Tahera were engaged. Over the next two months, my father spent every weekend with my mother’s family at their home, each time bringing gifts not just for my mother but for her parents and siblings as well.

  For many Afghan women, falling in love before the wedding doesn’t always happen. Sometimes love develops over time after the wedding ceremony, and sometimes it never happens. But my mother fell in love with my father during the two months they dated. She knew he was unique, not like other Afghan men, and she was lucky. She wasn’t afraid anymore, and she knew my father would support, love, and respect her. It was evident by the way he talked and how he treated others.

  On February 5, 1988, my parents were married at my father’s house. Two hundred people attended, with the neighbors opening up their homes to help accommodate all the guests. It was a wonderful celebration, and after ten years of war, it was a bright moment for my parents.

  Unfortunately, Afghanistan’s greatest troubles were yet to come.

  4

  Civil War

  I like to think that my parents had a happy first year of marriage. My father found a job after the army, and just as he promised, he encouraged my mother—who was only sixteen at the time—to finish high school. He knew about her dream to become a journalist and recognized she was an excellent student, and he meant to support her. Two days after the wedding, he took her to the bazaar to buy school supplies and new clothes.

  But my mother soon got pregnant. My grandmother was a very traditional woman and pushed my parents to start a family right away. My mother didn’t want to; she knew a baby would change everything, but she had no choice since birth control was never an option.

  Still, even with the pregnancy and the social expectation that new wives should focus on the home, my father wanted my mother to graduate. He helped her make arrangements to continue going to school, and when it became too hard to attend class, she studied at home.

  In January 1989, seven months pregnant, my mother graduated high school and ranked second in her class. Initially she was disappointed because she was no longer number one, but my father helped her see past that. Number two was nothing to be ashamed of, and she needed to turn her attention to the Kabul University entrance exam that was in two weeks. Even with a child on the way, he told her they’d figure it out.

  On March 25 my mother delivered their first child—a baby girl they named Afsoon, which means “magic.” My father was overjoyed, and with tears in his eyes he thanked God for giving him a healthy daughter. My mother, though exhausted and overwhelmed, was also filled with love when she held Afsoon for the first time. She said it was amazing to hold something so tiny and so fragile, and to know that this tiny life had grown inside her.

  But there was also a tinge of disappointment in my mother, because the baby was a girl. Afghan culture does not celebrate the birth of girls, and the in-laws will often chastise a new mother for not producing a boy. My grandmother was like this, and she immediately treated my mother with disgust, even refusing to hold her new granddaughter.

  My father didn’t let this faze him. He, his wife, and their baby girl were making a life together. They still lived at his parents’ home, and during the day he worked as a grocer; the war had made engineering and construction jobs nonexistent. At night, my mother and father worked to build a small room in the backyard to have just for themselves. In July 1990 my brother was born, and they named him Mohammad Omar, which is a strong, traditional Afghan name.

  This birth marked the end of the joy for quite some time.

  * * *

  The Russians left Afghanistan in February 1989, and a bad situation got worse. During the war, the Soviets controlled the population centers, which remained relatively secure. Although food was scarce and the economy had ground to a halt, people still attended school, got married, built houses, had families, and eked out an existence. The real danger was in the countryside and the border provinces, where the US-backed mujahideen operated. They shot helicopters out of the sky, executed brutal ambushes against military convoys, and murdered their fellow Afghans who supported the central government or who were from rival tribes.

  With the Russian army heading north back across the border and their Afghan puppets crumbling, a power vacuum ensued, and Kabul was the prize.

  Numerous mujahideen factions descended on Kabul, a two-thousand-year-old city. Rockets, gunfire, mines, snipers, poisoned food, and other hardships made life virtually impossible. The city became a war zone, and my parents were caught in the middle with two young children and a third on the way—me.

  * * *

  One night in the summer of 1991, when my sister was two and my brother was one and my mother was seven months pregnant with me, a neighbor came rushing over to my parents’ house. She banged on the door and woke everyone up.

  My father ran outside to see what the commotion was, and she told him that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the Hezb-e-Islami mujahideen, had just seized control of this area of the city. It was no longer safe to stay here. The rockets and bombings would start soon.

  My father, trying not to scare his wife or their children, had them pack a small bag with extra clothes and what little food they could find. My beautiful mother then put on a burka for the first time in her life.

  For those who have never been forced to wear a burka, it is oppressively stifling and degrading. It forces the wearer to breathe stale air that carries one’s own body odor, which is hot and sweaty from being shrouded under a head-to-toe canopy of coarse fabric. The mesh window you look out of severely restricts your vision and blurs what little you can see. Coupled with how the bottom edge of the burka falls around and underneath your feet, it’s easy to trip.

  My mother suffered through all these things and more. It was dark and she could barely see anything out of the mesh window. She said she felt like her hands and arms were tangled in a blanket, and she struggled to hold her infant son and also manage her pregnant belly. With every step she worried she’d stumble and hurt the baby or herself.

  Rather than being seen as a strong, intelligent, beautiful woman, my mother was now relegated to a faceless figure and stripped of her dignity. She wore this garment so the religious fanatics, the ones destroying our country, would allow her to pass unmolested. She put it on for pure survival.

 
; My family first went to a relative’s house on the north side of the city and stayed in the basement, somewhat safe from the bombs, but they could not live there indefinitely. There wasn’t enough room or food to last long, and my father expected the fighting to only get worse. The warring factions might very well come there next.

  With two small children and a pregnant wife, my father decided to leave Kabul and head north to Pol-e-Khomri, which was 140 miles away. They left in the middle of the night on foot, walking through a city that had once been vibrant with music, light, and happiness but was now marred by crumbling buildings, debris, and the dead. Severed hands, legs, and feet, along with entire bodies, littered the streets, and my parents did what they could to shield my brother and sister from these sights.

  The Russians had come first, sowing death and destruction with their tanks and helicopters, and then they left. Now the mujahideen and warlords were coming, not with aircraft but with equally lethal ground firepower that they’d just used to expel the Soviets. They would kill each other and anyone who got in their way, all of them trying to assert control over the capital and destroy their adversaries. It was a total civil war.

  At the edge of the city, my father hailed a truck that was going north and begged the driver to allow his family to ride in the back. Exposed to the cold air and wind, the dust and grime off the road, and the many mujahideen checkpoints along the way, my family made the seven-hour journey through the dead of night.

  With the dawn cresting Afghanistan’s northern hills, they arrived in Pol-e-Khomri the next day. The truck driver dropped my family in the city. My father didn’t know anyone, but the driver told him there was an abandoned apartment a few miles away in a deserted area on the edge of town. He thought they might find shelter there.