It took over a day and a half of travelling, and I was very happy to reach Waziristan. It was so exciting. The town was ringed with beautiful, snow-covered peaks crisscrossed with sparkling rivers.
My uncle took us straight to the main bazaar. It was filled with merchants, all shouting their wares in a guttural tribal dialect I could barely understand. They crouched on the ground drinking green tea, arguing loudly, or comparing wild birds kept in long rows of cages. Most of the shops were either selling guns, making guns or testing guns – by firing them into the air. I jumped constantly every time I heard a gunshot. Everywhere there were semi-wild street dogs, while the smell of sizzling kebabs, sold by roadside vendors, made my stomach rumble with hunger.
I was mesmerized, particularly by the piercing green eyes of the locals. The people of that district are famous for their beautifully coloured eyes. Even when they are happy they manage to look fierce and other-worldly.
My aunt’s house was small and surrounded by fields of opium, wheat and cannabis. I was desperate to run free in the fields, but it wasn’t safe because the Pakistan military were fighting local Taliban militants nearby. Mostly my brother and I sat in my aunt’s house, doing nothing, getting bored and feeling homesick, annoyed at not knowing how long we would be there or what was going to happen to us. We were only really allowed out to go to the village mosque to pray. I loved being there, as it helped settle my mind. I prayed that all of the pain to hit my family was for a purpose: I was beginning to understand that life was a test, and that it was important not to give up. I was also pretty depressed at not being in school any more.
After a week or so, my uncle took us to buy clothes. I was furious when he made us try on pairs of jeans. ‘Uncle, I’m not wearing these. It’s what the invaders wear.’
At home, we only wore the traditional shalwar kameez. I was so anti-Western, it felt like a complete betrayal to even consider wearing these devil jeans. I couldn’t understand why he was making us do it: denim was the cultural uniform of my enemy.
But my uncle was in no mood to argue. ‘Put them on. Do you think I am wasting my money here?’
Sulking, I did as I was told but I hated the way the stiff cotton felt on my skin. He also bought us a small rucksack each, T-shirts, underwear, and woollen gloves, strong boots and warm jackets. By the time we’d finished shopping, the rucksacks were full.
No one had yet spelled it out to us, but it was fast becoming obvious what might be happening.
Hazrat and I were far closer now than we had been in our early childhood. The trauma of the past couple of years had bonded us, but like all brothers we still got on each other’s nerves. Things weren’t helped by the fact that even though he was a year older than me and very clever, I always saw myself as the leader.
‘They’re sending us away, aren’t they?’ I said to him that evening.
He nodded.
I saw how he was trying to look wise and mature about it, but blurted out the only feeling I had on the subject: ‘Let’s not go. Let’s go home. We’re needed. We run the businesses and look after the women. I can take over the tailor shop. I’m a good tailor.’
‘No, Gulwali.’ My brother looked at me. ‘This is our mother’s decision, and we must respect it.’
‘She’s wrong,’ I insisted.
‘Listen, if she’s made this decision, it has to be serious.’
‘You’re a khazanouka.’ Calling my brother a feminist didn’t help matters, and I still felt angry. It wasn’t just my mother I was upset with; it felt as though the whole family was involved in this plot.
That feeling only intensified when, the next day, my uncle took us to a kebab restaurant. He greeted the owner of the restaurant, who took us to a back table away from the crowds.
‘So, these are the boys?’
‘Yes. And they will travel together? Their mother insists on this.’
‘You have my word,’ said the man.
I sat there nervously listening to my uncle and the man debate money, paperwork and routes. Nobody had said anything explicitly to Hazrat or me, but it was now becoming obvious that my family had been making arrangements for some time. For most of that meeting, in fact, my uncle and the man talked about us as if we weren’t there. Maybe it was too dangerous to share information, or perhaps they didn’t want to scare us even more. I don’t know. I just remember feeling a lot of confusion and despair.
In late October 2006, when we’d been staying with my auntie for around three weeks, my mother arrived for a visit.
I was happy to see her as I’d really missed her, but at that time I was also very angry with my mother. I felt betrayed. I had been the child who had prided himself on responsibility and protecting our family honour: it was a role I relished. Being stuck in Waziristan, I felt as though I didn’t have that status any more. And, unfair as it was, I blamed her.
She kissed me on the forehead when we greeted her, then went straight to talk to my uncle. The pair of them sat talking in hushed tones, and I wanted to shout at them. Why were they doing this?
The next night, Hazrat and I were told that we, my mother, aunt and uncle were going to visit someone’s house for dinner. This was to be expected: if you are visiting a new place, local people will invite you for dinner – it’s a key part of Pashtunwali – so I didn’t think anything out of the ordinary, assuming it might be one of my mother’s distant relatives or some old friends we were seeing.
The house was about a ten- to fifteen-minute walk away. My mother and aunt walked alongside us, both wearing their blue burqas. On arrival, Hazrat and I were ushered into the main quarters, where a few men of different ages sat on striped kelim-covered cushions on the floor, drinking green tea.
As I stuffed some naan into my mouth, I listened to the men debate politics.
‘The war over the border has reached us here now.’
‘The government will never win this.’
‘Pashtunwali itself is at stake.’
‘These foreign fighters need to go home. It’s because of them the US are dropping drones on our head.’
‘How can you say that? The US are the ones who occupied our brothers’ country.’
‘Yes, but isn’t it because of them that these Chechens and Arabs are in our midst?’
‘These Chechens and Arabs are our guests. They came here to fight the holy war. They are our brothers.’
‘Some brothers. Marrying our women and bringing danger to our villages. What good is this doing for our people?’
‘There are thousands living in camps now. We are refugees in our own homeland.’
After the food and the debate were over, we drank hot, sweet green tea and ate dried apricots, mulberries and almonds. I was beginning to feel relaxed and sleepy when my uncle and the host stood up and told Hazrat and me to follow them.
They walked us to the door, where my mother was waiting for us, in her burqa. I was aghast to see she had our rucksacks next to her. I had last seen them at my aunt’s house: I had no idea who had brought them here. It didn’t feel right.
Hazrat looked at me, as shocked as I was. I glanced at my mother for reassurance.
As she stood there, her knees seemed to give way slightly. I thought she might fall down.
She looked at my brother and me. ‘You must hold on to each other’s hands. Never let go of each other. Do you understand?’
‘What? Morya. I’m not ready. Please—’
‘I said, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’ She stared at us so hard through the mesh of her burqa I thought her eyes would burn through my skull.
We both nodded.
‘Be brave. This is for your own good.’ And then she said something that froze my heart. ‘However bad it gets, don’t come back.’
I started shouting. ‘I am not going anywhere. I am not leaving my family. I am needed here.’
‘G
ulwali, this is for the good of the family. Do as we say.’
‘No.’
I looked over at Hazrat. He looked stricken.
My mother started speaking again. ‘Listen to me, both of you. These people will take care of you, but you must take care of each other. Hold each other’s hands. Always.’ She looked at us both again, hard, holding our eyes. Then she took something from the folds of her burqa.
She handed us each US$200; my uncle gave us a handful of Iranian currency.
Our host looked at his watch. ‘We should move. Long drive ahead.’ He began to herd us outside, to where a car was parked.
I started to feel sick. ‘Morya, I don’t want to go. Let’s go home now. Please take me home.’
She glared at me and, for a split second, I thought she was going to hit me.
‘Morya, please.’ I said, absolutely desperate now.
The man shifted impatiently, looking at his watch again. ‘We need to hurry, madam.’
My mother began to visibly shake. I could see her eyes through the mesh of the burqa flitting from the man and back to us.
‘Where are we going, Morya?’
‘To safety. To Europe.’
‘They will be there in a few weeks,’ the man assured my mother. ‘It will be like a holiday for them, an adventure.’ And with that he literally bundled us into the car.
My mother stood watching as we got in, standing tall, proud and resolute. I don’t know how she would have reacted as the tail lights of the car rounded the corner: did she collapse, screaming and howling, finally allowing the trauma and grief of losing her husband and now her two older sons to finally flood through her?
More likely, given what a strong woman she was, she simply stayed quiet and locked her pain deep inside.
I was too traumatized to speak. My only comfort was my brother’s hand gently squeezing mine when he noticed my tears threaten to fall.
‘We’ll be OK. We’re together. I am going to look after you.’
That night we were driven to a city. I think it was Peshawar, but no one told us. We were taken to stay with a family, complete strangers, but given food and mattresses to sleep on.
In the morning, two new people arrived: a man and a woman. They were Dari-speaking Afghans.
Dari and Pashtu are the two main languages of Afghanistan. Pashtu is my mother tongue, and I’d lived in an exclusively Pashtu area, so my Dari was in no way good, but I could make myself understood – most Afghan kids speak both.
The woman explained that they would take us to the airport and fly with us to Iran. In the airport, we were to be on our best behaviour and pretend they were our relatives. She told us to make no noise and not to attract the security guards’ attention. From there we would go to Europe.
‘Where in Europe?’ I demanded to know.
The woman shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Don’t ask me. I’m just an agent. Your family made the arrangements with people in Kabul.’ She reached into a bag. ‘Here. Take this.’
She handed my brother and me an Afghan passport each. I had never had one before. I stared at it in surprise as my photograph peered back at me from the page.
When had my family arranged this?
On arrival at Peshawar’s international airport, I momentarily forgot my sadness. It felt so huge, with people, cars, queues and machinery everywhere, and I stood gaping in wonder at the scanning machine as our little rucksacks went through it.
I was brought back to reality with a jolt when the man we were with picked up Hazrat’s bag and led him through the gate. I went to follow, but the woman held me back. Hazrat didn’t give me a backwards glace – I assume because he thought I was right behind him.
I wanted to yell his name but the woman’s earlier warnings about not attracting attention still loomed large in my mind. ‘I want to go with him.’ I spoke to her as forcefully as possible and in the best Dari that I could muster. I had to make her understand what I said.
She ignored me, grabbing my arm so tight it hurt. I started to cry and she looked around nervously. ‘Be quiet.’ A guard glanced over in our direction. ‘It’s OK, it’s OK,’ she said quickly. ‘Later. You will see him on the plane.’
I stopped crying because I believed her. But when we boarded the plane, my brother and the man were nowhere to be seen. ‘Where is he? Where is Hazrat?’ I demanded.
‘Quiet,’ she hissed. ‘Different plane. You will see him on the other side.’
This time I knew she was lying.
By the time we arrived at our destination, I was a terrified, lonely and sobbing mess. As we went through Immigration, the reality that I was now in a foreign country hit me. Waziristan and Peshawar, although technically in Pakistan, still felt familiar because they were Pashtun areas. But Iran was completely alien.
Outside the airport, the woman simply pulled me over to a taxi without saying a word. I was begging for my brother and desperately straining my eyes in all directions in the hope that I would see him.
The female agent and the taxi driver spoke in Farsi, the main language of Iran. It’s very similar to Dari – the two languages are virtually the same, but the dialect and accent are quite different – so most Afghan Dari speakers can converse in it. But to a Pashtu speaker like me, Dari was hard enough, and my mental anguish and their strange accents made it hard for me to understand anything.
I tugged at the woman’s sleeve, trying to get her attention, but she flicked my hand away as if I were an annoying fly. Still weeping, I was bundled into a car and driven out of the airport into the surrounding countryside. I wanted so badly to see my mother or my grandmother – to have one of them hold me and reassure me and tell me it had all been a bad dream. I prayed that Hazrat was going to be wherever it was they were taking me.
The taxi driver, a skinny man with a big, hairy nose, glanced over at me as I sat on the back seat, snot and tears dribbling down my dirty, exhausted face.
‘Welcome to the holy city of Mashhad.’
This made me furious. Iranians were Shias. Muslims are split into two main branches – the Sunnis and Shia. My family were Sunni, and I had always been taught in the local mosque and at school that the Shia weren’t true Muslims, something that as a child I had accepted unquestioningly.
But I had to admit that Mashhad was very beautiful. It looked new and shiny and clean; the pavements were so sparklingly clean they seemed to glow. And the tall skyscrapers and shopping malls I had seen in books were everywhere; even the roundabouts had decorations in the centre of them. I marvelled at one that had a pair of hands holding the Quran carved in pink marble.
As I peered out of the car window in wonder at this modern paradise, I almost forgot my situation – until I saw an Iranian family walking down the street. The parents were holding the hands of their two children, a little boy and girl. The girl was wearing a white, lacy dress with a stiff petticoat and frills, while ankle socks and black patent shoes adorned her feet. The little boy had on a smart black suit and a red bow tie. The parents were clasping their kids’ hands tightly and swinging them up into the air. The sight of their carefree happiness cut like a knife as images of my little sisters and brothers rushed into my head.
Quickly, I blocked them out. I was already learning that in order to keep going I had to stop loving, stop remembering. Thinking about those I had left behind was too painful.
I was taken to a smart little hotel in the centre of the city. The manager came out to the taxi and asked if I had luggage – I had to concentrate really hard to understand the question. I answered by shaking my head and clinging on to my rucksack: it was all I possessed in the world.
Once inside, the manager took me to one side. ‘Are you the person of Qubat?’
I had no idea what he was talking about. What was ‘Qubat’?
‘Where is the other one? I thought there were supposed to be t
wo of you?’
‘My brother? Is he here?’
‘Maybe. There are some others belonging to Qubat here. He might be with them. Let me show you the room.’
He led me along a hallway and into a lift. As he pushed some buttons, it began to move. I was fascinated – I’d never been in one before.
‘OK, you guys are in room fifteen,’ the manager said, jangling his keys as the lift door opened.
Outside the room, he knocked on the door. Anticipation ran through me. I prayed Hazrat would open it.
Instead, a skinny, tall youth with protruding teeth and messy hair poked his head round the half-opened door. ‘Yes?’
‘The new arrival is here. He’s little. Introduce yourselves and look after him. He’s asking for his brother.’
The youth gave me a toothy smile and introduced himself as Mehran. ‘Salaam alaikum.’ He welcomed me in Pashtu.
I smiled back with relief to hear another Pashtu speaker. From that time on, being around other Pashtuns would always make the experience of being in a strange country feel a little bit easier.
The room had four single beds, one in each corner; in the centre was an Iranian-style carpet with a peacock design. Two other figures sitting on the floor got up as I walked in.
They both came over and hugged me. One, a clean-shaven, fit-looking man, who looked to be in his late thirties, introduced himself as Baryalai. The other said his name was Abdul. He was in his mid-twenties and seemed a bit shy.
‘You are too young to be here, little man. Let me get you some tea.’
‘No, no, I’ll get it,’ said Mehran.
This made me smile – typical Afghans, fighting over each other to show hospitality. These three made me feel instantly welcome.
As we sat on the rug drinking tea from tiny Iranian-style cups and saucers, I learned more about them. Baryalai was from Nangarhar, the same province I was from. He had grown up in a refugee camp in Peshawar. Mehran was also from Nangarhar and from Hisarak, the same district I’d grown up in. Abdul was the son of an army officer from Kabul.
The Lightless Sky Page 5