A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story

by Qais Akbar Omar

  The other man was skinny and half his age. He looked at me, as we say, “as if I were his family’s enemy.” His dark brown eyes, tan skin, and black shalwar kamiz contrasted sharply with his white turban. He asked harder questions in a loud voice and acted disappointed when I answered them correctly. I wanted to ask him some questions, as well. I was sure he would not know the answers. But I did not.

  Finally, they told me I could go home. Some of the prisoners who could not answer the questions stayed for two more weeks.

  “Why did you imprison me?” I asked the older jailer as I was leaving the room. But it was the younger one who answered.

  “Because you were not wearing a turban, and your hair was too long.”

  “But it was not more than three inches,” I replied.

  “You must keep your head shaved at all times, and wear a turban or a hat. We keep the violators at our prison, so they understand how serious their crimes are. It is our job,” the jailer said forcefully. “We are here to help you.”

  * * *

  When I came out of the prison, the sun’s glare blinded me for a few seconds. Slowly, slowly I opened my eyes and everything began to look normal.

  I did not have any money to get a taxi to go home. I could hardly walk, because of my lack of energy, but I had no alternative. I knew my family would have been looking all over Kabul for me for the past two weeks I was in the prison. That forced me on. Somehow I managed to walk the two miles from the prison all the way home, stopping several times to rest. I was worried that people might somehow know that I had been a prisoner. Maybe they would ask me how I had hurt my shoulder, which still ached. But there was almost no one in the street to see me.

  When I arrived home, I found my mother on a prayer rug facing toward Mecca and praying in a loud voice, “Oh God, keep my son in your peace. Save him from any dangers of the world. Wherever he is, give him the message that his mother is always waiting for him and tell him to come home…”

  “Your prayer is accepted,” I said softly from behind her.

  She turned around with an amazed look on her face. Unusual for her in the daytime, tears sparkled on her cheeks. A smile spread across her face, which revealed the wrinkles that now owned the corners of her eyes.

  Later that day, my father brought his friend who was a champion wrestler to the room where I was trying to rest. He told me to stand up, and when I did, he grabbed my arm and forced my shoulder back into place. I screamed like somebody had thrown me into boiling water. By the time I finished howling, I realized that the pain in my shoulder was mostly gone.

  The ache in my soul, however, was not so easily fixed. It is still there, as fresh as if these things had happened yesterday.

  19

  A Precious Jewel

  I was beginning to feel that I should take care of my family. My despair in prison had forced me to think about my life in a new way. I did not feel like a kid anymore. I was almost seventeen years old. “At seventeen, a Pashtun son should be a shoulder to his father.” This is what Grandfather used to tell me. In Afghanistan, even a sixteen-year-old is considered a grown man. But I did not know how to help.

  * * *

  My father had become so discouraged after the fire destroyed all his carpets that he quit the carpet business completely. He had kept his teaching job at Habibia High School during the fighting, though neither he nor any of the other teachers or the students could actually go there for about two years. Once things quieted, he was again riding his bicycle the five miles around the mountain every day to the school to teach his physics classes. Teachers, though, were paid very little. To keep us going, he also began buying and selling flour and cooking oil that came from Pakistan.

  He worked very hard. For a while he disappeared from our life. We woke up in the morning and he would not be there. We went to sleep late at night and he would not have returned. When we did see him on Fridays, he seemed to be in agony. After breakfast, he would ask my youngest sister to walk on his back and his legs to ease the pain in them. The rest of his Fridays were spent sleeping; we whispered when we talked and we tiptoed. He was too busy to pay attention to what we were doing. It was not like the old days, when he had made a schedule for me every day to do things in an organized way.

  * * *

  I felt that I was getting to be like a stray dog. I was trying to find a sense of peace for myself, trying to find someone who could guide me in the right direction, to the right path. I went to several mosques to listen for the invisible voice, but the mosques did not feel the same as before. It felt like I was being forced to say prayers the way the Taliban wanted. Talibanism: it was not the Islam that I knew from what I had read in the Koran or from what Grandfather had taught me.

  I went to Grandfather to get his advice, but he was too busy thinking about how to get our house back, and he was very afraid, not knowing what to do. I had never seen Grandfather like that. He had always made me feel safe, but now I did not know how to make him feel safe. He told me not to be dependent on anyone else. The time had come when I should make up my own mind and be my own guide, he said. I was not so sure.

  I started thinking about my carpet teacher, seeking her advice. I went to quiet places, trying to hear her.

  * * *

  Under the Taliban, the country grew increasingly poor, dismal, and isolated. The Taliban’s chief concern above all others was that men must respect the hours of prayers and women must be separated from the rest of society.

  I frequently cursed my country for allowing ourselves to be ruled by our neighbors, by the English, by the factions, and now by these Talibs. Most Afghans had nothing but contempt for the Taliban, whom we considered illiterate peasant extremists. They had originated from the poorest and most backward parts of the country, where literacy hardly was known.

  While the Taliban ruled, no one smiled. It was as if the Taliban had stolen our smiles. Or maybe the people just forgot how, except when they went to the jewelry shops to buy gold for their daughters’ weddings. Afghans were still determined to give their daughters gold when they married, even if they could have no music at the wedding.

  A jeweler friend who was a few years older than I had a shop near the Qala-e-Noborja in the Kart-e-Parwan neighborhood. We had met playing volleyball in a nearby park, and I spent a lot of time in his shop; it was one of the few places where I could hear laughter. His customers would spend an hour or more bargaining to get the cheapest price, and they made lots of funny jokes while they did so.

  My friend knew how to make his customers feel happy. That way they would spend more money and buy things they did not need.

  One day I was sitting next to one of his assistants, who was polishing an old necklace with hot water and sawdust. He dipped the necklace in boiling water for a minute, then he rubbed it hard with a toothbrush and put it in sawdust. Half an hour later, he took it out and polished it with a kind of soft brush until the gold gleamed like it was brand-new. I was getting interested in becoming a jeweler. This, I decided, was how I was going to help my family.

  That day nobody came to buy anything. My friend was bored. He kept yawning and gazing at the busy road, frowning at the frowning faces of the people who were walking past the shop. He was deep in his thoughts. The only sound was the whooshing of the Taliban cars, running up and down the road recklessly.

  A woman with a dirty burqa entered the shop and raised her hand to my friend. She was a beggar and was asking for money. Her hand was dirty like her burqa, and her brown skirt was full of tiny little burned holes. I thought she was some kind of drug addict.

  My friend was still staring outside with his elbows on top of his desk and hands under his chin. The woman gently pulled on my friend’s sleeve as a way of asking him to give her a few small afghanis. My friend looked at the woman, took a few afghanis out of his pocket, and gave them to her. She got the money and stuffed it into her pocket, then she raised her left hand. Her left hand was clean with long nails and they were polished red. S
he had a beautiful hand.

  On her palm was written, “I am available, and my price is 10,000 afs.” This was about fifty dollars.

  “Can I see your face?” my friend excitedly asked.

  She looked outside to make sure there were no Taliban nearby, then she pulled up her burqa for a second and covered her face again quickly.

  “Let’s go to the back room,” he said to her.

  My friend had a small storage room at the end of his shop.

  They were there for almost fifteen minutes. My friend came out with sweat on his forehead and a look of contentment. He told me to go in, that it was my turn. He would pay for me if I did not have money.

  I did not know what to say. I had never had sex before. My mind was screaming at me to go and experience these feelings that were filling my dreams. But my heart was whispering to me not to do it.

  I remembered the woman whom I had seen stoned to death in the stadium, because her husband complained to the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice that his neighbor had had relations with her. Indeed, the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice had stoned the woman and the neighbor both.

  I thought that if the Taliban captured me, they would stone me to death in public. That would be not only a severe death, but very shameful to my family.

  “What are you waiting for? Go in! She is waiting for you,” my friend said as his assistants snickered quietly. “She’s fantastic.” I looked at him, and then at his assistants. They were not more than eight or ten years old. Their coolness assured me they had seen my friend with other women before.

  “Do you want to go in, or should I dismiss her?” my friend asked with an annoyed tone.

  I did not know what to say. Then without knowing what I was doing, I walked toward the back room.

  * * *

  She appeared to be in her midtwenties. She wore a red bra and panties. She stood straight and relaxed, like the letter alef, with her back against the wall. Her skin was soft, and faintly glossy.

  I did not know what to say or what to do. She smiled at me and asked, “Do you have any experience?”

  I did not answer her. In fact, I did not know what to say. I was frozen there. My eyes stared at her, and my mouth was paralyzed. It was the first time in my life that I had seen a beautiful woman nearly naked, waiting for me to have her, and she was right in front of me, asking me a question that I was unable to answer.

  “I said, do you have any experience?” she asked again, and her tone was a little more serious.

  “No,” I said.

  “It is okay. I’ll help you,” she said.

  “How?” I asked, as I stood there staring at her perfect legs. I felt like I was in an oven, and sweat began to form on my forehead and on my back. My heart was beating fast and seemed to be in my throat.

  She slid down and slowly crept toward me on her knees on the bare concrete floor. Now I could see her breasts. I trembled. She grabbed the bottom of my shalwar kamiz and tried to pull me toward her.

  I stepped back, suddenly afraid to touch her, or to let her touch me. I felt like I was a deer being attacked by a lioness. At the same time, I was trying to look brave, and not to show my fear. Deep inside me, I wanted to let her do whatever she wanted to me. I ached to learn the feeling of being with a woman, and to feel her body against mine.

  “It is okay. You don’t have to do anything. I know it is your first time. But trust me, it’ll feel great,” she said.

  I stepped back a few more steps. Now my back was on the cold wall. She was standing again, very close to me. Her breasts were touching my chest. I could feel her warmth, smell her perfume. We both stared into each other’s eyes as if we were trying to find something there. Her breath brushed my face. My heart started to beat faster, even faster than before. My legs began to shake. It was as if she were sending electric current into me, and my body was too weak to receive it. I could feel that I was getting redder every second, as all the blood came to my face.

  “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Maybe you should do it with someone your age,” she whispered kindly. She understood my shyness.

  She stepped back and turned toward her clothes. Now her back was turned to me. She put on her trousers first, then her shirt and skirt. I wanted to hug her from the back and kiss her entire body, and hold her in my arms. But I did not have the courage. I was filled with confusion.

  Now she put her burqa on her head, and, with the veil still up so I could see her brown, almond-shaped eyes, she turned around and walked toward me. She stood before me, but not as close as before, and said with great sadness, “I’m not doing this for the joy of it. I’m doing this because I have to. Selling myself is the only possible way I have to earn any money.” Her eyes began to fill.

  “Can we talk for a minute?” I asked her. I did not want her to leave.

  “Talk about what? About my blackened life?” she asked as a tear rolled down her cheek, then dripped onto the concrete floor.

  I did not know what to say. I did not want her to cry. “Why don’t you marry someone who would look after you? You are a pretty woman; you can make a good wife,” I said. I did not know why I was saying this. I just wanted to make her feel good.

  She sat on a chair in the corner. I was still standing. She motioned to me to get another chair and sit.

  “Who is going to marry me?” she asked.

  I did not know what to say.

  She took a deep breath in and lowered her head. She was looking at her hands as she kept intertwining and releasing her fingers. “I was not born a prostitute, I was not born in a prostitute’s family either. I was born in a well-educated family, in a family of well-respected people.” She spoke very clearly, using good grammar and a high form of Dari that is not usually heard on the street.

  “My father was a general in the Ministry of Interior Affairs; he was a man of honor, a man of respect, a man of pride. He was educated in Russia, and he was very serious about our educations. My mother was a teacher, like me. My brother was studying in the Medical Faculty, and my sister was studying social law at the University of Kabul.”

  I was listening carefully to what she was saying, but still very conscious that she was a woman whom I might touch.

  “I taught chemistry in the same school with my mother, who taught literature. I had graduated from the Pharmacy Faculty. I’m the oldest child of my parents. I was married six years ago, and I have two children.” The words were tumbling out.

  “My husband had gone to my parents’ house to tell them the news of my newly born son. A rocket landed in my parents’ house and killed them all. In the end, there was nothing left for a burial. They were all turned into pieces and bits and mixed with the earth.

  “I was living in a rental house with my two kids when the Taliban came. They closed the girls’ school, and did not let any women work outside of their houses, as you know. I had no money to pay my rent. So, I was kicked out of that house by the landlord. Now I’m living under a tent in Parwan-e-Seh.

  “I don’t have any relatives from either side of my family in Kabul. They have all fled to foreign countries. I don’t have their addresses to ask them for help. After the Taliban closed my school, I started begging for a few months. But I never collected enough money to buy five naan. Most of the time, I went hungry. I put my kids to sleep with empty stomachs.”

  I was becoming absorbed in her story, and forgetting about what had brought us together.

  “About a year and a half ago I met another beggar, and she told me to sell myself. She said that there are a lot of customers for a body like mine. She also told me that prostitution is an art, not a black or shameful act. I cursed her and walked away from her. I continued my begging for another month, but I still couldn’t collect enough money, and my kids began to get skinny and sick. My daughter is the older one, and she is four years old; my son is three.

  “One day while I was begging along the Kabul
River in the jewelry shops there, a jeweler showed me a bundle of money. He said if I came to the back room, he would give me all of it. I told him that he was disgusting, and he laughed at me as I walked away.

  “I thought about my kids, who were suffering from malaria. I went back to that shop and I went straight to the back room. He came and used me. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I was there like a body without a soul, like a doll. I was used by a couple of his friends, too. An hour later, I had the bundle of money, and I took my kids to a doctor.

  “That night I cried the whole night without knowing why I was crying. I had not cried that much for my parents, my brother, my sister, or my husband when they died. The next day I didn’t go out. Whomever I looked at, I thought they knew the truth about me. I couldn’t even look at my own kids. I hated myself, and I wanted to kill myself. But I couldn’t do it. ‘Who would give my children the love of a mother?’ I thought.” She wiped her tears with her sleeves and looked at me.

  “Why am I telling you all these things? You don’t know me, and I don’t know you,” she said, and started to sob softly with her head down.

  “You have to tell them to someone, to feel light, to feel free. You can’t carry them all within you. You have to share them with someone,” I said. I was surprised at the words that were coming from my mouth. How did I know to say these things? I was using all the proper forms and grammar, as she was, though almost no one ever spoke that way anymore.

  “You’re just a damn kid. You haven’t seen the cruel face of life,” she said, standing and covering her face with her burqa. She ran out of the shop without taking her money. My friend shouted at her to come back later for it.

  I grabbed the bundle of money from the desk and caught up with her, walking slowly next to her. She did not see me because of the burqa, but I could hear that she was still crying quietly. The street was nearly empty. It was in the hot days of July. A few dogs were resting in the shade of walls, and little boys were carrying pots of yogurt with herbs toward their houses. She noticed me after a few moments; she stopped in the middle of the street and pulled up her burqa to look at me as I was standing in front of her. The hot sun was cooking my back. The little boys stared at her, because they had not seen any woman’s face on the street for two years, since the Taliban had come.