Rabia had to work to find her place in the family, applying much of what she’d gathered from Hinna together with her own considerable instincts. Her inquisitive nature quickly helped her lose her shyness, particularly around Sofie and Sameena. It was most effective when the conversation revolved around Sofie’s life and experiences, focusing, as Hinna had advised, on Sofie’s first days and months as the wife of Javed.
Generally, the strategy worked, but like all new relationships, there were episodes when sparks flew. Usually, it was from some trivial aspect of Rabia’s habits or style such as in food preparation or cleaning up. It would have been worse if the family hadn’t had Sarwat, the maidservant, to do most of these things most of the time.
“I can’t understand your mother,” Rabia complained on one occasion, after being taken to task for failing to set the tableware properly. “She could simply tell me how to do it correctly, but she gets so…so frustrated. Blames me for failing to be born with the knowledge and then looks at me as if I’m not from Earth!”
Sikander shrugged, declaring he was powerless to replace his mother. It was a feeble and unwelcome attempt at humor. When Rabia chafed at his not taking her seriously enough, he felt compelled to remind her that though it might be technically possible, he had no intention of replacing her either.
Sikander was truly in love with his wife. He had known her for exactly two years and her personality, beauty, and intellect were a perfect match for him. Still, it would be nice, he thought, if she could dial down her Shinwari temper a notch—especially when crossing with his Yousufzai mother.
As time passed, the flare-ups grew shorter-lived and less frequent. Although rules in Afghan village society were more complex and numerous than those that governed her life now, it was a substantial leap from Laghar Juy to upper-middle-class Peshawar. These rules were different, and the learning curve was steep. But progress was rapid as she rarely let an important piece of information get past her, and even more rarely forgot anything already learned. Deep down, Sofie and Rabia enjoyed each other’s company. Sofie’s patrician background demanded respect, while Rabia’s quick wit earned the same from Sofie. Above all else, both women knew and trusted that each loved Sikander.
One impact of Rabia’s arrival was her ability to act as a bridge between Sofie and Sameena. She could reliably represent the point of view of each to the other, and even during Rabia’s short experience with them thus far, a noticeable improvement in relations between Sameena and her mother could be seen.
By July, as Sikander re-entered the rhythms of living in Peshawar, he decided to prepare for a return to school in whatever way possible in September. Seventeen-year-old Jamil had done well and brought home stellar exam results from University Public School. The same, however, could not be said of Sameena, who had lost a worrying amount of ground in her English, mathematics, and science scores. Although she performed well in fine arts, it would not be adequate to get the kind of A-Level results required for a high quality career. On Sikander’s advice, Sofie decided that Sameena’s pursuit of art interests should be suspended unless she agreed to summer tutoring. Despite protestation over the potential conflicts with Sameena’s social calendar, Sofie refused to be importuned. Sameena’s ordinarily reliable charming of Javed proved ineffective. He was too busy tending to the source of the family’s income to be available to the debate. With the matter settled, Sofie began the search for a female tutor.
About a week later, a local teacher, Maryam Reza, came to the house. After this preliminary visit to iron out administrative issues, the first full session of tutoring began in earnest. It took place in the dining room and was intended for Maryam to gauge Sameena’s proficiency. Rabia was descending the stairs when she heard Sameena reading hesitantly in English. It was a passage from Rudyard Kipling’s Jungle Book:
“…old when he was caught, that makes him nearly seventy—a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing, with a big leather pad on his forehead, at a gun stuck in deep mud, and that was before the Afghan War of 1842, and he had not then come to his full strength.”
The exotic language emerging from Sameena’s lips caught Rabia’s attention at the point where the word “Afghan” was mentioned. Her descent arrested, she wondered why Sameena’s English reading had included the name of her people. Limited by the few words taught her by Sikander, Rabia would, for now at least, have to live with the mystery.
Sameena’s reading, with Maryam’s frequent corrections in the Pashto that Rabia readily understood, awoke in Rabia a yearning to be educated and able to speak English like her husband. She had a natural curiosity about the world, and when admonishing Sameena or Jamil for failing in their own inquisitiveness, she would often quote the Holy Qur’an’s enjoining all to explore the perceivable world and in it, see the signs of God. But now, all she could feel was frustration.
That night, she posed the question to Sikander, “Don’t you think I should learn to read and write English like you? The whole world uses it. There’s no harm, is there?”
“As a matter of fact I think it’s a great idea. I was thinking about Urdu too.”
Rabia was surprised that the subject had even occurred to Sikander. “You never mentioned it.”
“Frankly, it occurred to me when we arranged for Maryam to tutor Sameena. Since she’s here anyway, perhaps the two of you could learn together?”
“Yes, I was thinking something similar, too.” professed Rabia, becoming excited at the prospect. “And Sameena and I could help each other, though I can’t imagine how I could ever catch up with her.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Rabia. If she slackens off like she’s been doing at school, the way you go feeding on minds like a hungry tiger? It might take—a week?” Sikander laughed, ducking to avoid an oncoming pillow. Recognizing herself in his comment, Rabia couldn’t suppress a chuckle.
The necessary formality of Sofie’s permission as matriarch was unhesitatingly given. The arrangements were made; after each one-hour lesson with Sameena, Maryam’s attention was directed to Rabia in Sameena’s presence. It improved Sameena’s understanding to have her involved in teaching Rabia, and the two fed each other’s progress in Maryam’s absence.
After faltering steps with a rusty alphabet, from Sikander’s original teaching, Rabia began reading elementary children’s books from the series Clifford the Big Red Dog. She also prized her Sixth Edition Concise Oxford English Dictionary, which on occasion she read for simple recreation. It made Sikander’s life a little more miserable whenever he was called upon to explain the meanings of the words used to describe yet other words. Sometimes it revealed his own incomplete understanding of the language and when it did, Rabia never lost the opportunity to tease.
As the weeks passed, her grasp of the subject and her sharp mind made the going easy. Before long, she found she could make sense of some of the English language segments on TV. Even more interesting for her was the Dawn newspaper that arrived daily. When everyone else had done with it, she read it privately at her own pace, especially enjoying the lifestyle cues from its numerous articles and advertisements.
In the small back room of a house in Peshawar, an organization that had been instrumental in funneling money and recruiting non-Afghan mujahideen to fight the Soviets was embarking upon a transformation. It was called Maktab-ul-Khidmat and it had been founded back in 1980 by a former Jeddah University professor, a Palestinian called Abdullah Azzam. He was later joined by his former student protégé. His name was Osama Bin Laden, and he came from the family that owned Saudi Arabia’s giant Saudi BinLadin Group construction company. Bin Laden had become a major source of the Maktab’s funding. As the war was drawing to a close, Azzam wanted the organization to narrow its focus on Afghanistan and peacefully establish a purely Islamic state there. In strong disagreement with Azzam, a third member, Ayman al-Zawahiri advocated escalating the fight beyond Afghanistan into a global Islamic jihad against anyone opposed to the establishment of a single contiguous Isla
mic polity across the entire Muslim world. This included deposing corrupt rulers of Muslim countries, not least of which was his own native Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. Al-Zawahiri had spent three years imprisoned as a member initially of the Muslim Brotherhood and later, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad.
With a complete Soviet withdrawal now in sight, the debate had come to a head and the arguments became more heated. Bin Laden leaned in al-Zawahiri’s direction.
Rabia was luckily able to remain in contact with her family. Abdul Latif made frequent trips to Peshawar for supplies and weapons, and when he did, he rarely failed to visit his niece. One such trip was in mid August. Abdul Latif’s sons and nephews remained in Laghar Juy for harvesting and planting and while he stayed with Javed’s family, the three mujahideen that had joined him on this trip were put up at Arif’s house.
On August 17, while he, Sikander, Javed, Sofie, and Rabia were sitting out in the back courtyard chatting about how the fight was dragging on in Afghanistan, Jamil burst outside.
“It’s Zia. Zia’s dead! His plane crashed!”
“What!?” Javed cried out.
“No!” exclaimed Abdul Latif as he stood up transfixed as everyone else hurried to join Jamil in the TV room and gather around the screen. Reports were being relayed of the deaths of Zia-ul-Haque, much of the Pakistani military high command, the U.S. ambassador Arnold Raphel, and U.S. brigadier general Herbert Wassom, in a PAF C130 in Bahawalpur. Not much remained of the crashed aircraft, and there was little information about how the crash occurred.
Shaking himself loose from his temporary paralysis, Abdul Latif joined the rest of them. As he hurried into the TV room, he recited under his breath the customary Quranic ayah for a Muslim’s passing. His next thoughts were to see if this would mean any immediate change of plans.
“May I call a friend?” he asked.
Javed, nodded, his eyes glued to the TV. Sikander showed Abdul Latif to the phone. It took eight attempts for Abdul Latif to get through to Arif, who was equally distraught.
“What will happen? With us?” Abdul Latif heaved. “With the fight? Do you think the Russians will use this to change their minds? Will Pakistan still support us? And what about the Americans?”
Sikander, who had initially waited outside the room, entered, naturally curious to learn what all this implied for the mujahideen.
“Brother, I can’t say right now,” replied Arif. “What’s left of the high command appears to be treating it like an accident, but several things remain unknown, from what Junaid is telling me. All he can say is that they’ve lost a lot of top officers and it’ll take time to recover.”
“But Zia was our main supporter! He was the one who argued with the Americans—”
“You’ll have to wait a few days, Abdul Latif! It just happened. It’s too soon to know what’s next. Listen; call me in three or four days, when the dust settles. Meanwhile stay put. You have your niece there with you anyway and your men are safe with me here.”
Deeply worried, Abdul Latif cradled the handset. All he could do was speculate—Who did it? Who would come to power? Would they support the mujahideen? His head was exploding with unanswerable questions.
Sikander was powerless to help. He escorted Abdul Latif silently back to the TV room. By now the news wasn’t new. They switched off the TV and blankly looked at each other.
Still dazed, Abdul Latif followed the other men into the lounge.
“The plane was bobbing up and down and the pilot wasn’t in radio contact,” said Javed. “If there was a problem with the aircraft, they would surely have heard something from the pilot, some distress message, wouldn’t they?”
Javed’s implication presaged an obvious conclusion. If the pilot had not communicated with the ground, he was likely harmed in some way. That could mean sabotage. Certainly not a missile, as the reports had all indicated the aircraft was intact when it slammed into the ground.
Whatever the truth, the Pakistani pastime of formulating and promulgating conspiracy theories went into overdrive.
Zia had his enemies. The Bhutto family lost their leader at his hands. The Soviets could hardly have been more pleased with his death. It had been at his instigation that American support for the mujahideen expanded and turned the tide against them. Pakistan’s Movement for the Restoration of Democracy had been frustrated by a succession of promised, but invariably postponed election dates. The list of Zia haters included the Indians—among the handiest of candidates for Pakistani political conspiracies—and even Mossad, the Israeli secret service, which was believed to have infiltrated the ISI. Whatever the real facts, they would not emerge quickly.
After several days, the political fog cleared a little. Mirza Aslam Baig was now the highest-ranking military officer. Neither wishing for limelight nor to follow the fate of his predecessor, he declared that elections would proceed as scheduled. The aging Ghulam Ishaq Khan was sworn in as president and the November elections were set to take place in a way that no candidate could have imagined just a few days earlier.
What remained for Abdul Latif to learn, however, was whether or not support for the mujahideen was to proceed unimpeded. If not, he would have to rethink his plans. He would doubtless need to return immediately to Afghanistan, but the journey would be virtually impossible without ISI support. On the heels of General Baig’s pronouncements, it was time to call Arif again.
“So? What news?”
“Brother, you can relax. We’re still fully committed to the mujahideen. Junaid has it on highest authority within the ISI that the effort must continue. In fact, we have to consider planning a large campaign against Najibullah. It won’t be enough to have the Soviets gone if he’s still in power. And the mujahideen need to be assembling a government.”
Greatly relieved, Abdul Latif agreed.
Arif also told him that he would be receiving weapons, supplies, and all necessary ISI assistance to enable him and his men to return to Afghanistan. Abdul Latif took his leave from Javed and Sofie, made his salaams to Sikander and Rabia, and returned to Arif’s place to join the rest of his men for the long trip home.
With the election now in full swing and the country’s news more intense than ever, Rabia continued watching TV and reading Dawn almost incessantly, while quickly gaining on Sameena in her grasp of English. As an added bonus, Rabia also rapidly improved her Urdu from natural immersion in Peshawari life.
By the end of August, things settled down in the aftermath of Zia’s death. Sikander’s attempts to return to University Public School proved too complicated. He opted instead to take tutoring, which worked out well, allowing him to become better acquainted with the family business while preparing for his A-Levels at home. He routinely discussed business with his father, which pleased Javed immensely. There was a new maturity and confidence that Javed could clearly see in Sikander. It contrasted with the well-meaning naïveté of the young man who had stormed out of the family’s lives two years earlier.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan a new mission had taken shape. Former DRA general, Abdul Rahim Wardak, who defected and was now with NIFA, planned an operation to cut the Jalalabad-to-Kabul road as a prelude to attacking Jalalabad from the Torkhum sector on its east, while cutting resupply opportunities for the DRA out of Kabul on its west. Younus Khalis’s HIK forces, the Hezb-e-Islami Hekmatyar, and the Jamiat-i-Islami Afghanistan each joined in a loose coalition with NIFA in an attempt at a coordinated attack. The offensive was codenamed “Ghashay.” At that scale, it required several hundred tons of supplies to be ferried by mule across from Pakistan. Being with the HIK, Abdul Latif and his sons and nephews made more frequent trips supporting Operation Ghashay throughout September and early October. This in turn meant equally frequent visits to meet the always-welcoming family in Hayatabad.
At such times, Rabia was proud to demonstrate her advancement as she read the newspaper and translated it into Pashto as best she could, invariably eliciting compliments from Ejaz, Abdul Rahman, Abdul Majeed, and Abdul
Latif.
In early October, it was Saleem who accompanied Abdul Latif, arriving in the late afternoon. Saleem was genuinely happy to see his sister after several months. But when she approached him in greeting, he was distant in a way that she had neither experienced nor expected, simply passing his hand over her head in an act of fatherly blessing. He also had a significantly larger beard than before, looking more aloof than the warm and loving brother she remembered. Later that evening, dinner was served with the entire family together.
“Brother Abdul Latif,” began Javed, “how’s the Soviet withdrawal going? Do you see any difference in life in Laghar Juy?”
“They’re proceeding, but make no mistake, brother, Najib is like a fishbone in the gullet,” replied Abdul Latif with disgust. “The DRA isn’t simply melting away.”
“We’ll continue to pray for you and your efforts. Hopefully the current buildup will accomplish its objectives,” responded Javed, being appropriately vague.
After dinner, Javed, Sofie and Abdul Latif took to the lounge to chat as was common during such visits. The two men had come to enjoy each other’s company. Meanwhile, Saleem, Rabia, and Sikander went into the TV room.
“Saleem, you seem quiet this evening. How is everyone at home? Is aba’i well?” began Rabia. “And what news of Ejaz and Hinna?”
“So many questions, Rabia!” Saleem observed. “We miss your questions back home. It’s too quiet without you. Aba’i is fine and, yes, she misses you and looks forward to when you might be back. Hinna’s expecting, as you know.”
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