The Breadwinner

by Deborah Ellis

  “That was my wife,” the Talib said.

  The letter was very old. Parvana took it out of the envelope and unfolded it. The creases were embedded in the paper.

  “Dear Niece,” Parvana read. “I am sorry I am not able to be with you at the time of your wedding, but I hope this letter will get to you in time. It is good to be in Germany, away from all the fighting. In my mind, though, I never really leave Afghanistan. My thoughts are always turned to our country, to the family and friends I will probably never see again.

  “On this day of your marriage, I send you my very best wishes for your future. Your father, my brother, is a good man, and he will have chosen a good man to be your husband. You may find it hard at first, to be away from your family, but you will have a new family. Soon you will begin to feel you belong there. I hope you will be happy, that you will be blessed with many children, and that you will live to see your son have sons.

  “Once you leave Pakistan and return to Afghanistan with your new husband, I will likely lose track of you. Please keep my letter with you, and do not forget me, for I will not forget you.

  “Your loving aunt, Sohila.”

  Parvana stopped reading. The Talib was silent beside her. “Would you like me to read it again?”

  He shook his head and held out his hand for the letter. Parvana folded it and gave it back to him. His hands trembled as he put the letter back in the envelope. She saw a tear fall from his eye. It rolled down his cheek until it landed in his beard.

  “My wife is dead,” he said. “This was among her belongings. I wanted to know what it said.” He sat quietly for a few minutes, holding the letter.

  “Would you like me to write a reply?” Parvana asked, as she had heard her father do.

  The Talib sighed, then shook his head. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Pay whatever you like,” Parvana said. Her father had also said that.

  The Talib took some money out of his pocket and gave it to her. Without another word, he got up off the blanket and went away.

  Parvana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Up until then, she had seen Talibs only as men who beat women and arrested her father. Could they have feelings of sorrow, like other human beings?

  Parvana found it all very confusing. Soon she had another customer, someone who wanted to buy something rather than have something read. All day long, though, her thoughts kept floating back to the Talib who missed his wife.

  She had only one other customer before she went home for lunch. A man who had been walking back and forth in front of her blanket finally stopped to talk to her.

  “How much do you want for that?” he asked, pointing at her beautiful shalwar kameez.

  Mother hadn’t told her what price to ask. Parvana tried to remember how her mother used to bargain with vendors in the market when she was able to do the shopping. She would argue the vendor down from whatever price he named first. “They expect you to bargain,” she explained, “so they begin with a price so high only a fool would pay it.”

  Parvana thought quickly. She pictured her aunt in Mazar working hard to do all the embroidery on the dress and around the cuffs of the trousers. She thought of how pretty she’d felt when she wore it, and how much she hated giving it up.

  She named a price. The customer shook his head and made a counter-offer, a much lower price. Parvana pointed out the detailed designs of the needlework, then named a price slightly lower than her first one. The customer hesitated, but didn’t leave. After a few more prices back and forth, they agreed on an amount.

  It was good to make a sale, to have more money to stuff away in the little pocket in the side of her shirt. It felt so good that she almost felt no regret as she watched the vibrant red cloth flutter in the breeze as it was carried away into the crowded labyrinth of the market, never to be seen again.

  Parvana stayed on the blanket for another couple of hours, until she realized she had to go to the bathroom. There was nowhere for her to go in the market, so she had to pack up and go home. She went through many of the same motions she went through when she was with her father—packing up the supplies in the shoulder bag, shaking the dust out of the blanket. It made her miss Father.

  “Father, come back to us!” she whispered, looking up at the sky. The sun was shining. How could the sun be shining when her father was in jail?

  Something caught her eye, a flicker of movement. She thought it came from the blacked-out window, but how could it? Parvana decided she was imagining things. She folded up the blanket and tucked it under her arm. She felt the money she’d earned, tucked safely in her pocket.

  Feeling very proud of herself, she ran all the way home.

  EIGHT

  Mrs. Weera was back. “I’ll be moving in this afternoon, Parvana,” she said. “You can help me.”

  Parvana wanted to get back to her blanket, but helping Mrs. Weera would be another change in routine, so that was fine with her. Besides, as long as Mrs. Weera was around, Mother seemed like her old self.

  “Mrs. Weera and I are going to work together,” Mother announced. “We’re going to start a magazine.”

  “So we’ll all have our jobs to do. Nooria will look after the little ones, your mother and I will work on our project, and you will go out to work,” Mrs. Weera declared, as though she were assigning positions on the hockey field. “We’ll all pull together.”

  Parvana showed them the money she’d earned.

  “Wonderful!” Mother said. “I knew you could do it.”

  “Father would have made much more,” Nooria said, then bit her lip, as if she were attempting to bite back her words.

  Parvana was in too good a mood to be bothered.

  After tea and nan for lunch, Parvana headed out with Mrs. Weera to get her belongings. Mrs. Weera wore the burqa, of course, but she had such a distinctive way of walking that Parvana was sure she could pick her out of a whole marketplace of women wearing burqas. She walked as though she were rounding up children who were dawdling after class. She walked swiftly, head up and shoulders back. Just to be safe, though, Parvana stayed close to her.

  “The Taliban don’t usually bother women out alone with small children,” Mrs. Weera was saying, “although you can’t be certain of that. Fortunately, I can probably outrun any of these soldiers. Outfight them, too, if they tangle with me. I’ve handled many a teenage boy in my teaching years. There wasn’t one I couldn’t reduce to tears with a good lecture!”

  “I saw a Talib cry this morning,” Parvana said, but her words were lost in the whoosh of air as they moved quickly through the streets.

  Mrs. Weera had been living with her grandchild in a room even smaller than Parvana’s. It was in the basement of a ruined building.

  “We are the last of the Weeras,” she said. “The bombs took some, the war took others, and pneumonia took the rest.”

  Parvana didn’t know what to say. Mrs. Weera did not sound as though she was looking for sympathy.

  “We have the loan of a karachi for the afternoon,” Mrs. Weera said. “The owner needs it back this evening to go to work. But we’ll manage it all splendidly in one trip, won’t we?”

  Mrs. Weera had lost a lot of things, too, in bombing raids. “What the bombs didn’t get, the bandits did. Makes it easier to move, though, doesn’t it?”

  Parvana loaded a few quilts and cooking things onto the karachi. Mrs. Weera had everything packed and ready.

  “Here’s something they didn’t get.” She took a medal on a bright ribbon out of a box. “I won this in an athletics competition. It means I was the fastest woman runner in all of Afghanistan!”

  The sun caught the gleaming gold on the medal. “I have other medals, too,” Mrs. Weera said. “Some have been lost, but some I still have.” She sighed a little, then caught herself. “Enough recess! Back to work!”

  By the end of the afternoon, Mrs. Weera had been moved in and the karachi had been returned. Parvana was too wound up from the day’s activities to sit
still.

  “I’ll get some water,” she offered.

  “You, offering to do something?” Nooria asked. “Are you feeling well?”

  Parvana ignored her. “Mother, can I take Maryam to the tap with me?”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Maryam jumped up and down. “I want to go with Parvana!”

  Mother hesitated.

  “Let her go,” Mrs. Weera advised. “Parvana’s a boy now. Maryam will be safe.”

  Mother relented, but first she spoke to Maryam. “What do you call Parvana when you’re outside?”

  “Kaseem.”

  “Good. And who is Kaseem?”

  “My cousin.”

  “Very good. Remember that, and do what Parvana says. Stay right with her, do you promise?”

  Maryam promised. She ran to put on her sandals. “They’re too tight!” She started to cry.

  “She hasn’t been outside in over a year,” Mother explained to Mrs. Weera. “Of course, her feet have grown.”

  “Bring them to me and dry your tears,” Mrs. Weera told Maryam. The sandals were plastic, all in one piece. “These will do for Ali soon, so I won’t cut them. For today, we’ll wrap your feet in cloth. Parvana will buy you proper sandals tomorrow. She should be out in the sunshine every day,” she said to Mother. “But never mind. Now that I’m here, we’ll soon have this family whipped into shape!” She tied several layers of cloth around the child’s feet.

  “The skin will be tender if she hasn’t been outside in such a long time,” she told Parvana. “Mind how you go.”

  “I’m not sure about this,” Mother began, but Parvana and her sister hurried out before she could stop them.

  Fetching water took a very long time. Maryam had seen nothing but the four walls of their room for almost a year and a half. Everything outside the door was new to her. Her muscles were not used to the most basic exercise. Parvana had to help her up and down the steps as carefully as she’d had to help Father.

  “This is the tap,” she said to her sister, as soon as they arrived. Parvana had walked a little ahead, to smooth a pathway free of stones. She turned on the tap so that water gushed out. Maryam laughed. She stuck a hand in the flow, then snatched it back as the cool water touched her skin. She looked at Parvana, eyes wide open. Parvana helped her to do it again. This time, she let the water flow over her.

  “Don’t swallow any,” Parvana warned, then showed her how to splash her face with water. Maryam copied her, getting more water on her clothes than on her face, but at least she had a good time.

  One trip was enough for Maryam that first time. The next day, Parvana took Maryam’s sandals to the market and used them as a guide to get a bigger pair. She found some used ones that a man was selling along the street. Every day after that, Maryam went to the water tap with Parvana, and bit by bit she started to get stronger.

  The days began to fall into a pattern. Parvana went out to the market early every morning, returned home for lunch, then went back to the market in the afternoon.

  “I could stay out there if there was a latrine I could use in the market,” she said.

  “I would want you to come home at mid-day anyway,” Mother said. “I want to know that you are all right.”

  One day, after she had been working for a week, Parvana had an idea. “Mother, I’m seen as a boy, right?”

  “That’s the idea,” Mother said.

  “Then I could be your escort,” Parvana said. “I could be Nooria’s escort, too, and you could both get outside sometimes.” Parvana was excited about this. If Nooria got some exercise, maybe she wouldn’t be so grumpy. Of course, she wouldn’t get much fresh air under the burqa, but at least it would be a change.

  “Excellent idea,” Mrs. Weera said.

  “I don’t want you as my escort,” Nooria said, but Mother stopped her from saying any more.

  “Nooria, Ali should go outside. Parvana is able to manage fine with Maryam, but Ali squirms so much. You will have to hold onto him.”

  “You should get out sometimes, too, Fatana,” Mrs. Weera said to Mother. Mother didn’t answer.

  For Ali’s sake, Nooria went along with the idea. Every day after lunch, Parvana, Nooria, Ali and Maryam went outside for an hour. Ali had been only a few months old when the Taliban came. All he really knew was the little room they had been shut up in for a year and a half. Nooria had not been outside, either, in all that time.

  They would walk around the neighborhood until their legs got tired, then they would sit in the sunshine. When there was no one around, Parvana would keep watch, and Nooria would flip up her burqa to let the sun pour down on her face.

  “I’d forgotten how good this feels,” she said.

  When there was no line-up at the water tap, Nooria would wash the little ones right there and save Parvana having to carry that water. Sometimes Mrs. Weera was with them with her grandchild, and all three children were washed at the same time.

  Business had good days and bad days. Sometimes Parvana would sit for hours without a customer. She made less money than her father had, but the family was eating, even though most days they ate just nan and tea. The children seemed livelier than they had in a long time. The daily sun and fresh air were doing them a lot of good, although Nooria said they were harder to look after now in the room. They had more energy and always wanted to go outside, which they couldn’t do when Parvana was out at work.

  At the end of each day, Parvana handed over all the money she’d made. Sometimes Mother asked her to buy nan or something else on the way home. Sometimes, the times Parvana liked best, Mother would come with her to the market to shop for the family—Mrs. Weera’s arguments had finally worn her down. Parvana liked having her mother all to herself, even though they didn’t talk about anything other than how much cooking oil to buy, or whether they could afford soap that week.

  Parvana loved being in the market. She loved watching people move along the streets, loved hearing snatches of conversation that reached her ears, loved reading the letters people brought her.

  She still missed her father, but as the weeks went by, she began to get used to him being gone. It helped that she was so busy now. The family didn’t talk about him, but she heard Mother and Nooria crying sometimes. Once, Maryam had a nightmare and woke up calling for Father. It took Mother a long time to get her back to sleep.

  Then, one afternoon, Parvana saw her father in the market!

  He was walking away from her, but Parvana was sure it was him.

  “Father!” she called out, springing off her blanket and rushing after him. “Father, I’m here!”

  She ran into the crowd, pushing people out of her way, until she finally reached her father and threw her arms around him.

  “Father, you’re safe! They let you out of prison!”

  “Who are you, boy?”

  Parvana looked up into a strange face. She backed away.

  “I thought you were my father,” she said, tears falling down her face.

  The man put his hand on her shoulder. “You seem like a fine boy. I’m sorry I am not your father.” He paused, then said in a lower voice, “Your father is in prison?” Parvana nodded. “People are released from prison sometimes. Don’t give up hope.” The man went on his way into the market, and Parvana went back to her blanket.

  One afternoon, Parvana was about to shake out her blanket before going home when she noticed a spot of color on the gray wool. She bent down to pick it up.

  It was a small square of embroidered cloth, no more than two inches long and an inch wide. Parvana had never seen it before. As she wondered where it had come from, her eyes went up to the blacked-out window where she thought she had seen a flicker of movement a few weeks before. There was no movement now.

  The wind must have carried the little piece of embroidery to her blanket, although it hadn’t been a very windy day.

  She couldn’t blame the wind a few days later, though, when she found a beaded bracelet on her blanket after work. She looked
up at the window.

  It was open. It swung out over the wall of the house.

  Parvana walked closer to get a better look. In the narrow open space, Parvana saw a woman’s face. The woman gave Parvana a quick smile, then pulled the window shut.

  A few days later, Parvana was sitting watching the tea boys run back and forth between the customers and the tea shop. One of the boys almost collided with a donkey. Parvana was laughing and looking the other way when a tea boy tripped on something near her and spilled a tray of empty tea cups all over her blanket.

  The boy sprawled in the dust in front of Parvana. She helped him gather the cups that had rolled away. She handed him the tray and saw his face for the first time. She let out a gasp and slapped a hand across her mouth.

  The tea boy was a girl from her class.

  NINE

  “Shauzia?” Parvana whispered.

  “Call me Shafiq. And what do I call you?”

  “Kaseem. What are you doing here?”

  “The same as you, silly. Look, I have to get back to the tea shop. Will you be here for a while?” Parvana nodded. “Good, I’ll come back.”

  Shauzia picked up her tea things and ran back to the shop. Parvana sat there stunned, watching her old classmate blend in with the other tea boys. It was only by looking at them very carefully that Parvana could distinguish her friend from the others. Then, realizing it wasn’t a good idea to stare in case someone asked what she was looking at, Parvana looked away. Shauzia melted back into the market.

  Shauzia and Parvana had not been very close in school. They had different friends. Parvana thought Shauzia had been better at spelling, but she couldn’t remember for certain.

  So there were other girls like her in Kabul! She tried to remember who was in Shauzia’s family, but didn’t think she knew. Her mind was not on the last two customers of the day, and she was glad when she finally saw Shauzia jogging over to her blanket.

  “Where do you live?” Shauzia asked. Parvana pointed. “Let’s pack up and walk while we talk. Here, I brought you these.” She handed Parvana a small twist of paper holding several dried apricots, something she had not eaten in ages. She counted them. There was one for everyone in her household, and an extra one for her to eat now. She bit into it, and a wonderful sweetness flooded her mouth.