Lipstick in Afghanistan

by Roberta Gately

  They chose a moonless night in late February and prayed that the deep black sky would offer them some protection. They would make their assault on a house in the village where a cluster of Taliban lived.

  Raziq and a band of twenty men crept through the scorched fields and over the mud wall that hid the targeted house from view. Once over the wall, the men separated and waited for the signal, the flare of a match.

  As the match was struck, they all shouted to Allah and rushed into the house, bursting through doors and diving through windows.

  In the chaos that followed, every single one of them was killed.

  Though the villagers had weapons, the Taliban were possessed of plentiful and superior arms and they had known this day would come. They had been ready to fight, and they were merciless.

  Raziq was badly wounded but still conscious as the Taliban moved from man to man. Whether dead or dying, each man was hacked with a sword, and in his last moments it seemed to Raziq that the victors relished the task.

  The next morning, the village buzzed with the news. Uncle Abdullah hurried to the Taliban house and there he saw Raziq, swinging from a tree, his body slashed until he was barely recognizable. Abdullah covered his mouth but the vomit came anyway.

  He fell to his knees and cried to Allah. When he could finally rise, he pulled himself away and turned for home.

  Once there, he hurried through the gate and into the room where Parween was singing softly to Zahra as she folded up their sleeping pads.

  “Good morning, Uncle,” she said, her face lighting at the sight of him. “Will you share tea with us? Raziq isn’t here. I think he may be in the bazaar, but I would enjoy your company with my tea.”

  Abdullah sank to his knees and Zahra scurried behind him, out the door, and into the courtyard.

  “No, my dear, not today.” He paused and took a deep breath. “I have very bad news for you, for all of us.” He hesitated and took another long breath. “Raziq and a group of brave men attacked the Taliban last night. There was a terrible fight and Raziq and the rest—”

  But he couldn’t speak. Sobs came instead of words. He couldn’t even look at her.

  “What, what, they all what?” Parween rushed to him. “Has Raziq been arrested?”

  “They are all dead.” Tears fell from Abdullah’s eyes as he spoke, landing softly on his beard.

  Parween’s arms and legs went numb, and she fell to the floor in a heap.

  Oh Allah, so that is where he went.

  She couldn’t breathe, and an ache settled in her heart.

  No, no, let it not be true.

  She was sinking, like a pebble thrown into a stream, falling deeper and deeper.

  Uncle Abdullah wrapped his arms around her, and Parween buried her face in her hands and cried.

  She stayed curled up on the floor that day and moved only when her mother laid out her sleeping pad and led her to it. Rahima covered her and slept beside her, whispering words of comfort that Parween never heard. The only words that resounded in her mind were those that Uncle Abdullah had spoken.

  They are all dead.

  Raziq was dead. The Taliban had killed him.

  Word came that the men had all been buried in another mass grave. She would never have the chance to hold him one last time or to prepare his body for a proper burial. The Taliban had stolen that small act from her.

  It was more than she could bear.

  Parween sat alone each day, her knees drawn up, tears spilling quietly from her eyes, until one sunny morning weeks after Raziq’s death.

  Without warning, Zahra’s shrieks filled the air. Her terror roused Parween and she lunged for her daughter. The little girl had toddled too close to the cooking fire, and she had scorched her arm, leaving a raw, blistering burn. Her howls were a mixture of fear, pain, and betrayal.

  Parween held her, rocking them both until finally Zahra quieted, and then she rose, dried her eyes, and tended to her daughter’s arm. It was as though she’d never been away.

  But she had been away, and she had changed. A quiet anger simmered in her heart and she wanted vengeance. Someday she would get it. That single thought gave her purpose and allowed her to rise each day.

  Thankfully, there was no talk of having her marry Raziq’s brother. He had only one, and in those days of turmoil and chaos, no one knew if he was still alive. He had long since moved to Kabul, and there had been no word in months.

  There had been no word either of Parween’s brother Abdul, who had worked tending sheep. One day he had failed to return home after his work in the fields. It was assumed that he had either been killed or left to join the fight against the Taliban. Either way, the result was the same. Loved ones simply disappeared, and there was nothing to be done, no way to discover the truth.

  Rahima moved into Parween’s little home, and with the baby, they managed to subsist on the money and supplies that Raziq had hoarded. Zahra was safe, at least for the moment, and Parween intended to keep her that way. Raziq’s foresight freed her from the day-to-day worries of survival, yet only vengeance would ease her heartache and dim her anger.

  It might not happen today or even this month, but it would happen, and she could wait. She was a woman, after all. She was used to waiting.

  12

  By spring of 2001, the Taliban had occupied the village of Bamiyan for three years, and they announced that they would destroy Bamiyan’s Buddhas. The announcement stunned the people of the village, who pleaded for them to reconsider. But the Taliban ignored the outcry and set explosive devices at the bases of the magnificent relics.

  Parween watched from her compound as the centuries-old sculptures collapsed in endless clouds of dust and debris. Her beloved Buddhas, which she’d adored since she was a little girl, which had stood for generations, were destroyed in an instant.

  The Taliban respected nothing—not women, nor children, nor anything of beauty. Parween’s hatred for them grew.

  Parween climbed to the roof of her small house, as she often did these days, to take a look at the surrounding countryside. Perched on an incline, the house’s roof offered a clear view of the village center. This day, it was not the landscape that held Parween’s gaze but the Taliban she could see strutting about as they planted what could only be land mines. She remembered the lessons from her childhood in Onai, and the shapes and sizes of the mines were unmistakable. The Taliban never saw her as she peered from the roof and watched them closely. She knew every inch of Bamiyan, its fields and trees, its valleys and streams, and she kept track as the strangers planted their seeds of destruction.

  She watched them lay the mines in a distinct half moon pattern, working out from the center of the spot they’d chosen. They covered each mine with dirt or brush to hide it from view. She counted the paces as they walked between the mines and committed everything she saw to memory.

  Once in her room, she bent to her writing paper, and by the glow of her candle, she sketched out little maps, perfect replicas of the patterns the Taliban had followed as they buried the mines. She gave the maps to Uncle Abdullah, who passed along the warnings—stay away from this field or that stream, and if you cut through Arif’s field, avoid the trees.

  The word was passed, and the grateful villagers wondered just who was the source of the vital information. No one—especially not the Taliban—could have imagined that the information came from a woman.

  But Parween wasn’t the only woman to defy them. Word traveled that a young widow had thrown off her veil, dressed in men’s clothes, gathered a Kalashnikov, and ridden off to join a group of young rebels. She was quickly becoming a legend as stories of her exploits spread. They said she’d killed more Taliban than any of her male comrades. In a pitiful attempt to discredit her, the Taliban had branded her a traitor to Islam. But she was a heroine to the villagers who heard of her feats. Many claimed to have seen her as she rode through distant villages, her plaited hair flying out behind her, a bandolier strung across her chest. Her legend t
ook on special meaning for the people of Bamiyan, who claimed her as their own.

  Surely, they said, only a Hazara woman would rise up in such defiance.

  Parween imagined that the revered young rebel was Mariam. She had heard that Mariam’s husband, in a sinful effort to save his own life and endear himself to the vicious Taliban, had offered them his pretty young wife to enjoy while they were in Mashaal. This latest news had been carried back by Haleema, a gossipy old woman who had moved from Bamiyan to live with her son in Mashaal. When she’d returned for a visit, she’d hurried to the house of Uncle Abdullah to share what she knew with Parween.

  “Ahh…” Haleema ran her tongue along her lower lip and glanced about the room with her narrow eyes. “It is best if no one else hears. What happened to your friend is very sad, I’m afraid.”

  She paused and wiped her sweating brow with the end of her long veil.

  “What happened? Just say it!”

  “The Taliban are not the pious men of religion that so many believe. In Mashaal, their immoral, wicked ways were well known, and they greedily accepted the old man’s offer of his young wife. Poor Mariam was thrown at their feet and she was forced to open her legs to them all.”

  Parween gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

  Haleema’s voice grew softer. “They beat her, as well, and covered her with burns and bruises.”

  Parween closed her eyes to the images and held her breath.

  “It has been said that Mariam begged her captors for mercy but the Taliban do not listen to the rantings of dogs or women. Mariam was forced to live like an animal, and when the Taliban were finally finished with her, even her evil husband refused to accept her back. He said that now she was nothing more than a whore.”

  Parween felt hot tears sting her face. “Has no one helped her?”

  “The whisperers have said that Mariam escaped to the caves along Mashaal’s mountainside and that some of the village women are caring for her there, but I do not know for certain. She may be there in the caves; I just do not know. I am sorry, Parween.”

  “We must find her. Get word to her to come back. When will you return to Mashaal?”

  Haleema thought for a moment. “In the coming weeks, inshallah, if all goes well for my son.”

  “Please, pass the word. Someone must know where she is. Tell her that she must come home to us. Please, Haleema. Promise me that you will do that.”

  Haleema nodded, and Parween kissed her cheeks.

  * * *

  Not long after she heard the news of Mariam’s misery, three fierce-looking Taliban stormed into Parween’s compound, demanding food and money. Uncle Abdullah was in the bazaar and Rahima’s pleas for mercy were ignored. Parween, with Haleema’s words fresh in her mind, went to her mother’s side.

  “What do you want?” She scowled, wondering how men so young could be so evil.

  Cold, black eyes peered back at her over their bushy beards.

  “We know you have money, whore! Give it to us.” One of them prodded her with his rifle as they made their demands. He held a finger at the side of his nose and snorted heavily, snot bursting onto the ground.

  The sight of them, the closeness of them, made her skin crawl, yet Parween replied calmly. “I have buried our money in the field. Of course, you may have it if Allah wishes. I will show you where it is.”

  Once she had donned her burqa, the greedy Taliban pushed her to the door and she led them to a nearby empty field. She walked tentatively at first, trying to recall where the mines here were planted, and looked about anxiously. Then she saw it—the crooked old apricot tree that had shaded the Taliban as they’d laid their mines in this field.

  She stared at her feet to get her bearings and count her paces. The Taliban followed closely. Straightening, she stood tall and took several long strides through the field. Her sudden bravado angered one of the Taliban, who reached out to slap her. As he reached forward, he stepped right onto a mine and in an instant he was blown to bloody bits.

  “Allah u akbar!” she yelled in surprise as she was thrown to one side by the explosion, and his remains rained down on her.

  The two remaining Taliban—just boys really—stopped and glanced about, horror etched on their faces, beads of sweat collecting on their brows. Where to step, what to do? Parween could almost read their minds. The dead man had carried the only weapon, and his companions now stood as helpless as Parween. She saw the pleading in their young eyes, and she hesitated.

  She almost wanted to say, Stop! Don’t step there!

  But she didn’t. Instead, she turned and ran, and as she did, she heard the explosions.

  Slipping into a narrow alleyway, she arranged her burqa so that the gore wouldn’t show and tried to slow her breathing as she returned unseen to the compound. When Rahima found her, Parween had washed away the blood and recovered her composure.

  “Oh, my child,” Rahima cried. “I prayed to Allah to protect you.”

  “I am fine, Mother,” Parween said, surprised at how calm she sounded. “They didn’t really want any trouble.”

  Rahima wrinkled her brow and reached for her daughter. “You are shaking. Are you certain that you are unhurt?”

  Parween pulled away. “I’m fine. They wanted only to frighten us. They won’t bother us again.”

  The next day, word spread of the deaths, and it was assumed by everyone—including the Taliban—that the deaths were due to the stupidity of the three men.

  Parween was never suspected.

  She was, after all, only a foolish, useless woman.

  In September, the Taliban left Bamiyan. Uncle Abdullah returned from the bazaar one night with the news.

  “The Taliban raft, they have left,” he said, a smile spreading on his face as he spoke. “Allah has answered our prayers. There is no sign of them.”

  “I do not trust them, Uncle,” Parween replied doubtfully. “No one should. If it is true, then where have they gone?”

  “Ahh, little one, be thankful at least for this. For now, they have left. I saw women in the village today, just walking. You should come with me tomorrow, get some air.”

  Parween felt dizzy.

  “It is true? You are certain? It is not a trick?”

  “See for yourself,” he answered.

  The following day, she and her mother walked to the bazaar, where Parween smelled the fresh bread and read the old newspapers for the first time in what seemed like forever.

  But her joy was short-lived as October arrived and the bombs rained down. There had been whispers in the marketplace that the Taliban had attacked Amrika but that didn’t make any sense; the Taliban were stupid, and they were cowards. No one with any sense at all would do such a thing.

  But why else would Amrika send bombs and soldiers?

  When the foreign soldiers moved in, the Taliban fought back, but only faintly. When their defeat was imminent, they trimmed their beards and tried to disappear into the countryside.

  But the villagers did not forget. When the foreign soldiers came through in November, the people of Bamiyan pointed out the once-feared oppressors who tried, to no avail, to make themselves as invisible as the women they’d so tormented. The villagers showed the Taliban the same mercy they had granted their victims. In Bamiyan alone, the soldiers and locals rounded up some one hundred Taliban prisoners.

  The people came out to cheer the American soldiers as they rode through Bamiyan in their tanks and jeeps and fell from the heavens, parachutes billowing out above them. It seemed as though Allah himself had sent them.

  Parween stood on the side of the road and watched it all in wonder. She wished Raziq were there to see it with her.

  PART

  3

  Friends

  13

  Elsa’s first harrowing month in Bamiyan had finally come to an end, and with it much of her angst and timidity. Even the strange-sounding diseases—leishmaniasis, typhoid, malaria, and intestinal worms—problems that had been unima
ginable on her first day, had grown less daunting once she’d actually seen them.

  She’d developed routines to brace herself for the day, and each morning she climbed to the roof to have her coffee. There, she’d watch the village come to life, the cows and donkeys and children fanning out across the roads, chores already under way. But there were more than children and animals waking in the village one morning, and Elsa scrambled for a better look when she heard jeeps rumbling by. Certain it was the convoy of her blue-eyed soldier, she craned her neck and squinted, blinking away the sun. But when the jeeps came into focus, they were adorned not with the U.S. Army lettering but with the UN logo instead. Disappointed, she sat back down to finish her coffee. There’d been no sign of the soldiers since that morning she’d spied them on the road. Pierre was right. She might not see them again at all.

  Then another morning, as she sat on the roof with her coffee, the unmistakable whir of a helicopter broke through the morning quiet. Elsa stood tall, her eyes scanning the sky, and there, fluttering down from hovering U.S. Army helicopters, were men held aloft by billowy white parachutes. They drifted off to land, hidden from view by the hilly terrain.

  She wanted to jump with joy. Perhaps her soldier was among those men.

  Within days, as if she’d willed it, a soldier arrived at the clinic and asked for Elsa. He was wearing camouflage pants, a tan T-shirt, and a baseball cap. A rifle hung from his shoulder and a pistol was strapped to his belt. She swallowed the tinge of disappointment she felt when she realized he was not the soldier she’d seen on the road. Still, he looked every bit a GI Joe—blond, handsome, tanned, and ready to fight.

  He held out his hand and announced in a Southern drawl, “I’m Lieutenant Dave Martin, and the Chief sent me to find you. We’re with the Fifth Special Forces Group out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We’re stationed not far from here. We only recently found out you were here, and we’d like to offer to help you in any way we can.”