My Name Is Parvana

by Deborah Ellis

  She’s pretty good, Parvana thought, listening to her sister’s clear, strong voice and seeing the joy on her sister’s face. Maybe we should put her on television.

  She looked at the audience.

  The other students were smiling.

  Ava, off to the side, had a big grin on her face as she mimicked Maryam’s movements.

  “Shameful!” a man yelled from the audience. “Shameful!”

  The parents sitting around him tried to get him to be quiet. Maryam looked startled for a second, but she kept on performing. The more the man yelled, the louder Maryam sang.

  When she finished, the applause from much of the audience was uncertain.

  They’re not used to enjoying themselves, Parvana thought.

  Maryam ran off the stage. Parvana’s class was next, and she moved her students quickly into place.

  “Afghanistan is a nation that borders Pakistan to the east and Iran to the west. It is made up of many provinces,” the first girl said, loud and clear. “Here are the names of the provinces.”

  The other girls joined in this part, each one saying a province’s name in a loud, confident voice. They moved easily from the names of the provinces to the names and length of the rivers, the highest mountains and the major crops. The whole thing was done with speed and joy, and the applause at the end was good.

  Parvana’s fear eased off, and then the concert came to an end and she was too busy to think about it.

  Lunch was served. Mother moved through the crowd answering questions and saying nice things to parents about their children.

  Finally, the guests headed out, many carrying little bundles of leftover sweets. Mother closed the gate and leaned against it, sighing with relief.

  “I had five people tell me they would send their daughters next week,” Mother said. “I think we’ll get even more new students than that.”

  “And Maryam’s dance?”

  “I’ll speak to her. She should not have done it, but your geography class saved it, I think. Well done.”

  Mother’s brief words of praise were so rare that Parvana was shocked into stillness as her mother hurried off to start the clean-up.

  Take that, Nooria, she said in her head.

  She wandered through the rows of chairs, picking up a fallen napkin, a stray flyer. She was so much in her head, dreaming up other ways she could earn her mother’s praise, that she almost walked right by the little girl who was sitting quietly by herself in the third row.

  She was not wearing a uniform, so she wasn’t a student. Her clothes were shabby but clean, and her hair was brushed and in a neat braid down the middle of her back. Her chador hung across her shoulders like a scarf.

  “Waiting for someone?” Parvana asked her.

  “Yes.”

  Parvana looked around. The yard was empty.

  “Who are you waiting for? I think everyone has gone.”

  “The person I’m waiting for hasn’t left.”

  The girl was tiny, but her voice was big, like the voice of a bird that knew it had the right to sing.

  “Oh. Well, come with me and we’ll look for whoever brought you. They may be wandering around the classrooms. Do you want to come to school here?”

  “I am coming to school here.”

  I’d like her in my class, Parvana thought.

  “Come on, then.”

  She held out her hand.

  The girl did not take it.

  Parvana noticed that the girl’s eyes were focused up and away. She waved her hand a bit. The eyes didn’t react.

  “Who are you waiting for?” Parvana asked her. “Your parents?”

  “Oh, no. They’re dead.”

  “Who brought you?”

  “My uncle. But he’s gone.”

  “He left you?”

  “I’m waiting for a teacher. Could you get one for me? Tell them Badria is here.”

  “You’re Badria?”

  “I sure am.”

  Parvana decided to take a guess.

  “Badria, can you see?”

  “Not a thing. Are you a teacher?” Badria asked.

  “I am.”

  “Well, then,” Badria said, “don’t just stand there. If you’re a teacher, get busy. Teach me to read.”

  Parvana sat down in the chair beside Badria.

  She had no idea how to explain this to Mother.

  NINETEEN

  The cell door banged open.

  In shock, Parvana looked up to see several guards, the major and the interpreting woman standing in the doorway, looking at her.

  The major approached the bed where she was seated. He picked up Jane Eyre, keeping it open to where she was reading, looked at it and returned it to her.

  “You got farther than I did,” he said in English. The interpreting woman remained silent. “My wife tried to get me to read it for her book club on the base back home.”

  He stood and looked at her.

  “Did you have anything to do with the attack on this base a few days ago?”

  Parvana felt sad and heavy.

  “It looks like the attack was staged to give you the chance to escape. Some guy on a bicycle blew himself up. Killed two of our people and put a whole lot of others on the injury list. What is so valuable about you that they would send one of their men to his death in order to rescue you?”

  Parvana, of course, did not answer.

  “It’s all starting to come together. We are methodical, and we are going over everything in that school. We have found the remains of munition parts. We are now convinced that materials for building roadside bombs were being stored there. We know you lived there. We have to find out what you know.”

  He paused, then said, “Enjoy the book.”

  He started to leave, then turned back.

  “Our investigators discovered the body of a woman on the school grounds. It looked like she had been tortured to death. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you? Odd thing was, she was buried with respect, in the Islamic tradition, facing Mecca. We found her under the rose garden.”

  TWENTY

  “Mr. Fahir quit.”

  It was the day after the festival. Parvana went into Mother’s office to report that none of the staff and very few students had shown up for school that morning. It was the last day of class before the weekend. Parvana figured they all just wanted an early start to their time off after working so hard.

  “He quit?” Parvana asked. “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He slipped this note under my office door and snuck away in the middle of the night. No notice! And he’s got two weeks’ pay coming to him!”

  Parvana picked up Mr. Fahir’s note. The words were clear. I must quit. I am sorry.

  “We’ll manage,” she said.

  “Maybe one of the teachers has a family member we could hire,” Mother said. She stuffed some papers and files in her briefcase. “I’ll be back by this evening. Ask Asif to spend the day in the guardhouse. In fact, he’d better move in there until we get a replacement for Mr. Fahir. We don’t want people to think we have no man to guard us.”

  “Mama, take Asif with you.”

  Her mother would be safer if she wasn’t traveling alone.

  “And leave you in charge on your own? Goodness knows what you’d get into.”

  Parvana didn’t respond. Ever since Nooria left, she’d been trying not to answer back as much. It seemed immature.

  “Then take me,” she said. “Leave Asif in charge here.”

  “You’re not getting out of studying. You have a physics exam coming up. Where’s my phone?”

  Parvana helped her look for it. A car horn sounded.

  “There’s the taxi,” Mother said. “Forget the phone. It’s only a meeting of
the college planning committee.”

  She hurried out of the office. Parvana stayed right behind her.

  “Are we really going to have a college for women around here?” Parvana asked.

  “That’s what we’re working for,” Mother said as they crossed the yard. “We tell our students to study hard and finish high school, but then what? Are they just supposed to stop learning? That’s not good enough. We need a college.”

  Mother unlatched the door in the metal gate. Parvana followed her through it and watched her get into the taxi.

  “Keep an eye on Maryam,” Mother said from the back seat. “Don’t let her run off to Kabul to be on TV.”

  Parvana waved as the taxi drove off.

  “You’re in charge,” her mother said. “Look after everyone.”

  Then Parvana realized that Asif was standing just behind her, waving goodbye, too. Mother could just as easily have been talking to him.

  She told him about Mr. Fahir. “Mother wants you to move into the guardhouse until she hires a replacement.”

  “I’ll get some projects to work on in there,” Asif said. “Any teachers show up yet?”

  “We’re on our own.”

  “Not the first time,” Asif said. Then he left to fetch his things.

  Parvana went inside the guardhouse. She wanted to find the key to the lock on the storage shed.

  The guardhouse was small. It had a table and chair by the window, a narrow mat on the floor and a couple of crude shelves with nothing on them. She went over every inch of the room, even lifting up the mat and looking underneath the shelves.

  No key.

  She didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed.

  Then the school day began and she was too busy to think about it.

  To make it easier to keep track of everyone, Parvana had all the students stay in the dining hall, each in their own corners. She sat in the middle, listening to the murmured lessons. She was a little afraid of what might happen if the students realized that she and Asif were the only teachers in the school.

  “The teachers are in a meeting,” Parvana said whenever she was asked. She nodded vaguely in the direction of Mother’s office. “They are discussing the reports they’ll be writing for your parents.”

  So far, it was working. Everyone was doing what they were supposed to.

  The standard of behavior was pretty high at the school. The girls had waited so long to get here, and they knew that life without school would be boring and difficult.

  Ava wandered from group to group, listening in, not bothering anyone.

  Parvana wished she knew what to do with Ava. She tried to keep her busy with little jobs like helping in the kitchen and sweeping the courtyard. And she loved to dig in the garden. It was a better life than she had before, but Parvana thought they could make it better for her still. She just didn’t know how.

  Badria was doing fine. She had totally refused to say who or where her uncle was.

  “He has a new wife and she doesn’t want to be bothered with me,” she said. “So I am here to stay. And if you keep asking me, I’ll just stop talking.”

  And she did. Whenever the question came up, she clamped her lips together and refused to speak.

  “I guess she’s staying with us,” Mother said.

  “I guess she is,” Parvana agreed.

  To Parvana’s surprise, Maryam took Badria under her wing, showing her around the school. They spent the whole afternoon and evening together after the festival, wandering from room to room. Badria learned fast. Most of the time, Parvana forgot she couldn’t see.

  Maryam was the student most likely to get into mischief, so Parvana had her sister and Badria sit near her. Maryam was supposed to be memorizing a poem. Badria repeated every line she said, so they were both learning it.

  It was a relief when the school day ended and the students went home. The weekend was about to start. Parvana was looking forward to a couple of days off — although she never had a day that was completely off. There was always work to do.

  “We learned the poem,” Maryam said, interrupting Parvana’s thoughts. “You want to hear it?”

  “Of course,” Parvana said, then watched in amazement as the two girls performed the poem as a dance, reciting and moving to the rhythm of the words.

  “Wonderful!” Parvana applauded. “How do you know what movements to do?” she asked Badria.

  “We plan it out while we are learning the poem. Then I have to trust that Maryam doesn’t change them while we’re reciting.”

  “Where’s Mama?” Maryam asked. “I want to show her. She’ll let me go on TV if it’s poetry.”

  “Mother’s not back yet.” Parvana realized how late it was. “The meeting must be going well. You might be able to go to college one day, Maryam.”

  “I’d rather go to Hollywood.”

  “Could I go to college?” asked Badria.

  Parvana was in a hopeful mood.

  “Absolutely,” she said. Why not? Afghanistan was capable of wonderful things. Sending a blind girl to college could be just another one.

  “What would you like to be?” she asked Badria.

  “A pilot.”

  Parvana’s jaw dropped. Her brain was still trying to find a reply when Badria and Maryam burst out laughing and skipped off down the hall.

  Parvana shook her head. “Save me from little girls,” she said. Then she went back to work.

  She decided to clean her mother’s office. She dusted the shelves. When she swept under the desk, her mother’s cell phone came out with the dust.

  Parvana pressed buttons here and there. Her mother had promised to show her how to use it after Nooria left, but she never got around to it.

  She almost dropped the phone when she heard her mother’s voice.

  “Hello? Parvana? Anyone there?”

  “It’s me, Mama! I’m here!” Parvana yelled, then shut up when she realized her mother was continuing to talk.

  “Of course you’re not there. You are all at lessons. I don’t know what’s happening here. There’s no meeting and no one seems to know anything about it. I’m borrowing this phone from a shopkeeper. What a big waste of the day. And I’m probably leaving this message to myself.”

  The phone went silent.

  Parvana shook it, not knowing what else to do.

  She started going through the desk, looking for information about where her mother had gone — an address, an organization’s name, a phone number —anything. She found a government phone book, lesson plans, teacher-training guides and blank writing paper.

  But no clues about where her mother was.

  “Why didn’t I ask more questions?” Parvana cried. “Why didn’t I pay more attention to what she was doing?”

  The only drawer left to explore was the bottom one. Parvana opened it. It held just one thick file. She put the file on the desk and looked inside.

  It was full of letters.

  Each letter was a threat.

  Parvana counted seventeen of them. All were nasty.

  She read as many as she could stand, then closed up the file and put it back where she had found it.

  At supper time, Parvana and Asif kept the conversation going around the table, quizzing the younger ones on their lessons and working hard not to look at Mother’s empty chair.

  For the rest of the evening, Parvana strained her ears for the sound of the returning taxi. She wanted to open the gate and stand in the road, watching for headlights, but she couldn’t make the others worry.

  Finally, the children were asleep. Parvana left the school grounds and stood in the middle of the narrow dirt road.

  She could see tiny lights from faraway lanterns and cook fires. The sky was lit up with a billion stars.

  But no car lights and no Mother.
>
  “This is familiar,” Asif said from the open window of the guardhouse. “Watching you wait for your mother.”

  Parvana leaned against the guardhouse wall.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” she said. “I keep losing her.”

  “What will we do if …”

  “Her meeting is running long, that’s all.”

  “If it’s a long meeting, it’s probably a good one.”

  “Yeah. Probably planning a really big college.”

  “Go to bed,” Asif said. “I’ll watch for her.”

  But Parvana couldn’t do that. She sat in the dirt with her back against the wall.

  She heard Asif sigh and draw back from the window. A moment later he handed her a blanket and sat down beside her, his own blanket shawl around his shoulders.

  He started to sing and Parvana joined in — one of the songs they had sung together years before when they wandered in the wilderness, looking for someone who could look after them. They sang just loud enough to keep their voices busy and not afraid.

  Long after Asif curled up on his side and fell asleep, Parvana remained awake and watchful as the constellations traveled across the sky, then faded into gray.

  She could not remember a time when she did not believe she was on the edge of a disaster. Her life had gone from battle to battle, and she was never, ever sure that the future would not be terrifying.

  And just when it started to look like things were getting quiet and back to normal, her mother had to go to a meeting and not come home on time.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Morning arrived without Mother.

  “You said she’d be back by now,” Maryam whined when Parvana and Asif walked into the dining hall after their night on the cold ground.

  Parvana looked at the four children lined up on the bench looking angry and scared. Even Badria, who could not see, and Ava, who loved Parvana with her whole heart, were joining in the group glare.

  Parvana controlled her face. As hard as this situation was, it would be harder if everyone got upset.

  “Why are you all just sitting there?” she asked. “Asif and I are cold. And we’re hungry. We want a fire in that wood stove, hot tea in our mugs and breakfast on that table. Now! Move!”