All the songs were in Pashto with no instruments, no soft background music. We heard the same type of songs from outside, from cars going from one street to the next with loudspeakers at high volume. They were songs, but they were without music.
None of our relatives would be coming for lunch that day, I was sure. And I had no appetite. I went earlier than usual to the garden to sit under the grapevine and to read and to put these new guys out of my mind. As I was settling into my usual place, I saw something shining on the ground next to the garden wall. I left my book on the ground and went to see what was there. A Kalashnikov with several boxes of bullets next to it lay in the tall grass by the wall. Nearby was a plastic bag with thirteen grenades in it.
I did not touch any of them. I was afraid that they might be wired to a mine somewhere. I called our old chowkidar to come see them.
The doorkeeper shuffled toward me, leaning on his stick. The end of his dirty turban hung in front of his face. It was covered with stains from the tobacco juice he was always spitting. He looked at the weapons and spat.
“They must belong to Masoud’s people,” our doorkeeper said. “Masoud escaped from Kabul last night. Zalmai’s wife told me.”
“But why are these weapons here?” I asked.
“Those who couldn’t escape with Masoud had to get rid of their weapons. This new faction is saying that if they find any weapons in anybody’s house, they will put them in prison,” the doorkeeper said.
He knocked at a grenade with his stick. I jumped back.
“We have to hide them somewhere,” he said. He opened his turban and spread it on the ground. With no fear, he gathered the Kalashnikov, the bullets, and the grenades into his turban, then he slung them onto his hunched back. He carried them across the garden to the far side where there was a pit toilet. Carefully, he dropped them one by one down the hole. Then he pressed them with a shovel until they all disappeared under the filth.
I walked all over the garden to see whether there were any more weapons. I found more grenades and some mines that looked like a yellow butterfly, two RPGs, hundreds of bullets, and six guns.
I hid one of those guns under my trousers for myself. It was the kind I had seen many times in James Bond movies. Now that I was fourteen, I understood that I had the responsibilities of a man. A gun felt like a good thing to have. We put the rest in the toilet and pressed them down until they all sank under the mess in the pit.
I continued to walk all around the garden to see whether I had missed any other weapons. While I was pushing aside some bushes, someone from the street threw two bags of grenades over the wall into the garden.
“Who the hell is that? Is our garden your trash ditch?” I shouted. I climbed the wall to see who it was.
He was a tall man with broad shoulders, running like a scared dog, trying to disappear from sight.
I shouted at him several times and cursed him for being a coward, but he did not look back as he disappeared around the corner.
I opened the bags. Each bag had twenty grenades in it. I took them to the toilet and dropped them one by one until they had all sunk out of sight.
For a week, more and more weapons came over our wall. We collected an armory of guns, grenades, RPGs, bullets, butterfly mines, and things we had never seen before. For a week we kept putting them all in that pit toilet.
By the end of that week, there was no longer enough filth to cover all the weapons. We sent everyone in the fort to use the weapon-toilet to help cover what was in there.
One day, as I was relieving myself, I looked down through the hole to see the barrel of a Kalashnikov pointed up at my bottom. It was too late to stop.
At the beginning, some of our neighbors were afraid to use the weapon-toilet. They thought that they might cause explosions. But my father was a very good convincer.
He said that there was a rumor that if the Taliban—now we knew that was who they were—found anyone with weapons in his house, they would put the suspect in prison and whip him to death.
We all heard, “Once you are in their prison, it is almost impossible to get out, unless you bribe them with a huge amount of money.” I do not know how people knew these things. The Taliban had been in Kabul only a week.
We still did not know much about them. Most of what we had heard came from the BBC. They told us how the Taliban had taken control of Jalalabad, the last city in Afghanistan before the Khyber Pass leads into Pakistan. From there, the Taliban were moving toward Kabul. Other Taliban fighters had taken control of the main road to Kabul that comes from Kandahar and the west. And still more Taliban controlled a smaller road through Logar Province to the south. The only road from Kabul that was still open was the one that went to the north.
The Mujahedin government had become weaker and weaker as the years of civil war had gone on. They could not fight back, because they were so busy fighting each other. When they heard that the Taliban had captured Sarobi, a town halfway between Jalalabad and Kabul and close to where Zardad had his camp, they panicked. They knew that thousands of Taliban would be in Kabul by the next day, showing no mercy.
So the Mujahedin factions raced out of Kabul in the middle of the night on the last road that was open. They hauled truckloads of guns and ammunition to their bases in the Panjshir Valley and across the Hindu Kush mountains in the north, so the Taliban would not get them. But that did not matter. The Taliban had been given all the weapons they needed by Pakistan.
When the first group of Taliban had arrived in Kabul, they had expected a fierce fight. Instead, they found that the Mujahedin factions were gone and the streets were empty. They were confused to find themselves in such a silent city, but they did not take long to let us know that they were now our rulers.
* * *
Every day we heard new decrees from Mullah Omar, the head of the Taliban, from Radio Sadai Shariat (The Voice of Islamic Law), received from the office of Amer bel Maruf wa Nai As Munkar (Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice).
One day: “Every man in Afghanistan should grow a beard.”
The next day: “Every woman over twelve should wear a burqa.”
The next day: “Kite flying is forbidden.”
The next day: “No one should be seen to keep pigeons or fighting birds in his house. Pigeons are for shrines and mosques.”
The next day: “No one anywhere in Afghanistan should watch TV. If anyone is ever found to be watching movies, he will be punished in public and imprisoned for six months.”
The next day: “Every man should go to the mosque five times a day for prayers.”
We could say nothing. Everyone knew, however, that sooner or later a new faction would take over and things would change. This was Afghanistan, after all. This was how things worked.
At the end of the broadcast Maulvi Nazami, the head of Radio Sadai Shariat, said, “We say the right things so that we can be loved.”
* * *
A few weeks after the Taliban arrived, I saw one of them hanging out the back of a van with a loudspeaker in his right hand. He was shouting, “We, the Students of God, are bringing justice to this city and the other cities all over Afghanistan. If anyone has any interest in our justice, come to Kabul Stadium and witness our justice. Today at two o’clock.”
I had been on my way to school and told some of my classmates whom I met about the strange announcement I had heard. I said that I wanted to go to the stadium to see what the Taliban meant by justice.
Some of my classmates said that they wanted to go, too. Afghans are always hungry to learn anything new. So instead of going to our classes, we headed across Kabul, hanging out the doors of an overcrowded bus.
The stadium was filled with men and schoolboys as full of curiosity as we were. A pickup truck drove into the middle of the field. That was surprising. Grass is hard to grow in Kabul, and no sensible person would drive a truck, even a lightweight one, onto a playing field. There was a loudspeaker on the back of the truck. Tw
o Taliban wearing black shalwar kamiz, long hair, and white turbans stood on the truck. Even from the seats we could see the black rings of kohl around their eyes.
“We call ourselves Taliban, which means the Students of God. We never do wrong,” one of the men on the back of the truck said into a microphone. “We never do wrong even by mistake. Everything we do is right, so we can be loved. Everything we say is right, so we can be cherished.” As he spoke, he kept rotating so he could address every part of the stadium.
A moment later, two other Taliban brought a man onto the field with chains around his wrists, feet, and neck. The Talib with the microphone said the man was a thief who had stolen a pair of shoes from a shop.
The Talib’s voice got higher and louder, which made the loudspeaker screech. “This guy has stolen a pair of shoes from a Kabul shop. He deserves amputation. Our justice for thieves is amputation. If we don’t have justice toward thieves, they will take control like Genghis Khan, or English people, who are the biggest thieves of our time. Then it will be impossible to control them.”
They stood the thief in the middle of the football field and opened his handcuffs. Two Taliban held his right arm down on a table. A doctor injected the man’s right arm with anesthetic, then took a saw and cut off the man’s hand while he watched. One of the Taliban took the hand and waved it around to the crowd. The hand was still bleeding, and the pale fingers seemed to our horrified eyes to be moving very slowly. The thief went numb and collapsed. Two other Taliban took him by the arms and dragged him off the football field.
The spectators were shocked. A stunned silence filled the entire stadium. I had been to the stadium many times with my father, but this was the first time I had experienced such total quiet there, though it was packed with thousands of men.
My classmates and I did not want to stay any longer. We stood up to leave. Some other people stood up to leave, too. But Taliban came from all directions, beat us with whips, and ordered us to sit and see the execution.
They brought another man with cuffs on his hands and chains on his feet.
The eerie silence was broken by the Taliban announcer: “This man killed his neighbor four years ago, then he escaped to Iran. When he came back, we arrested him. Now someone from the victim’s family will shoot the killer in the head, and you will be witnesses.”
Then a Talib handed the victim’s relative a gun and asked him to shoot. The relative fired the gun and shot the murderer through the head. The bullet hit his forehead and came through the back of his head. His body shook for a few moments on the ground.
At the end, the announcer said, “We will conduct two more acts of justice on Friday. Now you can go, and you will come back next Friday. No tickets needed.”
I ran out of the stadium, determined never to go back there ever again. But in the weeks that followed, a new principal who was a Talib was appointed to our school. He ordered us to go several more times, to see more of the Taliban justice. We saw women whom the Taliban said were prostitutes stoned to death. We saw men who were accused of being homosexuals killed by having a mud brick wall toppled on them. Since the Taliban left Kabul, I have never gone there again.
At the front gate of the stadium, a few Taliban gave every passerby a paper with a big headline in large black type at the top:
JUSTICE
REPRESENTS EQUALITY
Imprison the violators. Amputate the thefts, execute the murder, topple wall on homosexuals, and stoning to death the prostitutes!
We imprison the violators to be a lesson to them for futures that no one denies our Islamic virtue.
Amputation is needed for thieves to stop more thefts in the future.
Execution is needed for murderers to stop more murderers.
Stoning to death is needed for prostitutes to stop more adultery and prostitutions.
Adultery and prostitutions carry AIDS with them. Killing prostitutes are every Afghan’s duty.
There are three types of punishment for homosexuals.
1. Take these people to top of the highest building and hurl them to death.
2. Dig a pit near a wall somewhere and put these people in it then topple the wall on them. If one does not die, then he is not a sinner and not a homosexual. The wall should be toppled on blamer.
3. Homosexual hair should be shaved and he should be taken around on top of a donkey upside down with a blackened face displaying to society.
Be aware! We bring in action the second punishment.
We beat the sinners with whips for the minor offences. If they die under the whipping, it means they were the sinner of sinners and he or she died clean.
Whoever had written the announcement was somebody who did not know correct grammar. When we turned the paper over, we saw a headline about the Taliban’s rights for women. Below it was a long list of things that women could and could not do. My friends and I read it. I turned to my friends and said, “Wow, women are in cages.” The list was long. Some of the rules were strange.
WHAT ARE THE TALIBAN RIGHTS FOR WOMEN?
The parents should not keep their daughters inside their house. They should get them married as soon as they are ready. This is the advice from us, and since we are the Students of God, we know better than others.
Poor and widow women should be assisted financially by their blood relatives. Widows should be remarried by her father-in-law’s family.
Women should not step outside of their residences. In case of emergency, they can go out but they should not wear fashionable clothes to attract the attention of other men, because she belongs to only one man (Husband) or soon she will be property of a man (Husband). If any woman is seen outside with fashionable, tight, and charming clothes, she will be chased to her house, and her brother, father, or husband will be punished and imprisoned. Woman should only be attractive to her husband inside her house. Women have the responsibility of a teacher for their children and a helper to her husband.
Women’s makeup is forbidden unless they do it for their husbands inside the confines of her house, but men can use kohl outside of the house and inside.
Women do not have as much brains as men, therefore they cannot think wisely as man. So, we refuse to allow them to become involve in politics.
Whoever is holding this paper; he or she should give it to other women or read it to them, so they know our rules and observed them.
Sincerely! The Taliban rules.
I took that paper home and showed it to my mother and sisters. They showed it to our neighbors. Soon everybody had read it or had a photocopy of it.
At first, people made fun of the incorrect grammar and bad spelling. But soon, women understood that these things were serious.
When the Mujahedin factions had arrived and had issued their version of Islamic laws, women were forced to cover up, but they could still go anywhere and do anything they wanted, if the fighting allowed. Now that the Taliban were in control, females mostly disappeared from Kabul’s streets.
The men faced their own strict set of rules, as well. One of the strictest was having to go to the mosque five times a day rather than praying wherever they found themselves. The mullah there had an attendance sheet. He called out our names to find out who was present and who was not. He would put a cross before the name of an absent man and report him to the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The next day a Talib might come and imprison that man for a week or so.
For the first few weeks, every day someone was imprisoned for being absent. But as the months passed, the decree was not enforced so strictly, unless one of the mullahs disliked someone.
In our neighborhood, there was a man we used to call Malem-e-chaq, the chubby teacher. He had six sons and was extremely rich. He even had a swimming pool in his garden. The mullah did not like him at all, though I do not know why. Malem-e-chaq was a good man. Yet, the mullah kept a strict account of when he came to the mosque, so the poor man had to be there five times a day, except when he went
to other countries for his import-export business. But before he left on a trip, he had to tell the mullah where he was going, and how long he would be away. So did his sons, who had shops to run in other parts of Kabul. A few times my father did the same thing when he had to go somewhere.
Before prayers, the mullah talked about Islam and religion for ten or fifteen minutes and asked people in the mosque basic questions about Islam. In these new days, the mullahs in charge were either all Taliban or had become Taliban, or acted like them, except for one old mullah who had seen his entire family—wives, sons, daughters, brothers, and his mother—wiped out by a Russian bombing raid. He was then a farmer. One day he had stayed a bit longer in the fields after the others had gone to the house to eat. A Russian plane roared overhead. Bombs exploded and threw him to the ground. When the dirt that was swept up into the sky by the blasts had settled, there was no sign that there had ever been a house, or that he had ever had a family. The Taliban were told these things about him and left him alone.
One evening before prayers, our mullah asked the first line of people in the mosque, “If you fill two buckets, one with alcohol and another one with water, and take them both to a thirsty donkey, which one will the donkey drink?”
A guy from the first line said, “Of course the water.”
“Since the donkey avoids drinking alcohol, then you have to hate it yourselves and not even touch it,” our mullah said.
A guy raised his hand from the second line and asked, “If there are a few drops of alcohol in a glass of water, is it still as bad as pure alcohol?”
“If I piss a few drops in your glass of water, will you drink your water?” our mullah said.
“Of course not,” the guy answered.
“The alcohol is a million times worse than my piss,” our mullah said.
A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story Page 29