Baba-jan had said that the gun he’d had for many years should have been taken away from the house, but instead, at the last minute, they had decided to bury it in our well. My God! What if they found it now? Would they assassinate Baba-jan? Would they murder all of us? Fear washed over me as I imagined Baba-jan’s white beard stained with blood again.
Someone must’ve exposed us. How else could the Taliban have known to go down the well?
I opened my eyes. I heard a shout. I saw the two Taliban at the edge of the well pulling up the rope. My teeth rattled with fear. My hands and feet were shaking. I gazed at the faces of Baba-jan, my father, uncles, and brother. That suspended moment is carved deep in my memory. Despair. During all those years of war, while our men were either on the roofs or in the trenches, our family was most fortunate because our allotment of death was small. Now, we were about to pay the price for all that good fortune.
The Talib’s head appeared above the rim of the well, then his waist, and finally his empty hands. There was no rifle. Where was the rifle? The Taliban were talking among themselves. Dusting off his clothes, the Talib who had searched the well suddenly turned, staring straight at the storeroom. It was too late to pull my face away. I held my breath. The Talib began walking toward the front gate, followed by the other Taliban, with their rifles slung on their shoulders.
Seeing their backs, I dashed out of the storeroom. Our men stood stunned in silence in the courtyard. We had escaped a horrific disaster; at any moment their heads could have been put under the sword. I turned to Uncle Basheer. “Did you take the gun out of the well?” Shocked, my family turned to look at me. Everyone hissed: HUSHSHSHSHSHSH!
Mushtaq locked the gate. Numb with amazement, we all went inside. The men’s turbans were still on their heads. One by one, I collected their turbans. I knew we had escaped a terrible fate . . . Baba-jan’s eyes were red, and I could guess that his beard was wet. Nanah-jan appeared with a jug of rose water. She believes that rose water has a calming effect. Baba-jan said, “The side of the well holding the gun must have collapsed, which made the gun fall to the bottom of the well.”
“Maybe that’s why the water has been muddy lately.”
The next morning, Madar made tea and poured sugar into our glasses.
Nanah-jan said, “We must address the fact that Homeira is a woman now. It’s only a matter of time until one of the Taliban comes for her.”
Baba-jan nodded. “We must find a way before they burst into the house some afternoon and force us to marry her off to one of them.”
Nanah-jan said, “In this land, it is better to be a stone than to be a girl.”
Since the night before, I had not moved from my spot behind the window. As they talked, for the first time I truly understood the pain of being a woman. I covered my face with my hands and cried and cried. If the glance of that Talib fell on me again and if he sharpened his teeth for me, nothing and no one would be able to stand in his way. The nekah would proceed according to his wishes or our home would be bathed in blood.
We knew that girls were often taken away to become Taliban wives. Our neighbor Nasreen had recently been married to a Talib who showed up at her door two nights later and said, “I’ve been reassigned to Khost Province. I’ve come for my bride.”
Nasreen didn’t even have time to wrap a bundle for herself. Putting on her burqa and her slippers, she stumbled out the door behind him.
I sat behind the window of our living room looking at the sky, where a cluster of stars had crept under a dark burial shroud. Must I wait for my own summons? Would I hear it tonight? Tomorrow night? I knew that if the Talib who was to be my fate came to our door, I would not allow anyone to start a war. Like Nasreen, I would put on my burqa and my slippers and I would go.
That night, in my dreams, I saw the same Talib walk onto the patio and call me by my name, Homeira! Homeira! I jumped up in fright and ran to the veranda. The Talib was standing right there like the bird Abbabil with a stone in its beak. And the named inscribed on that fatal stone was Homeira . . . The Talib pointed his gun at me, shouting, Hurry up! Then I saw myself donning my burqa, tucking my shoes under my arm, and quietly leaving the house. Then I saw myself standing on the porch with a rope around my neck. I looked at the sky. The stars were staring at me from beneath their blanket and they were crying. The Talib came and dragged me behind him.
Suddenly I saw myself in a distant place, but with that same rope around my neck and a baby girl nestled in my arms. The Talib took me to a big market where dozens of women were standing with crying babies in their arms. Every one of the women had a rope around her neck. Then I saw a man approaching. He squeezed my cheeks, saying, “Open up, open.” He looked at my teeth and counted them. He told the Talib, “She is young,” and then he paid him.
The new owner grabbed the end of the rope and hauled me behind him out of the market. With my baby, I am dragged through an alley that opens to a desert. The man took the baby from my arms. He noticed that it’s a girl and dropped her on the ground. He continues walking toward the desert, dragging me behind him. My baby, in her newborn swaddling, was crying after me, Madar! Madar!
In pain and agony, I saw myself trying to run toward my baby. I saw that there were dozens of dead baby girls. Their eyes, mouths, and ears were infested with tiny worms. The man was yanking me away. I was being strangled by the rope. My eyes were bulging, and my face had turned blue. My baby was crying after me . . . Madar . . .
Two days after the house search, Mushtaq arrived home ashen-faced, his hands shaking. He said, “I saw Commander Moosa.”
Baba-jan asked, “Who?”
“He’s the Talib who climbed down our well. He was in the neighborhood with several other Taliban, asking people’s names and where they lived. As I started to run away, he noticed and shouted after me in Pashto, ‘We shall see the men of your household soon.’ They were in a big car. A person with a rocket-propelled grenade was sitting in the backseat.”
The cultural implication of his statement was clear: When a commander signaled to his men that there was a girl he wanted, they knew they were to go and get her. The system had been the same under the communists and during the civil war. Girls had no say in whom they wanted and it didn’t matter who they were, what they thought, or how they looked: it was enough that they were female and had reached puberty. Besides, most of these men had three or four wives in their homes and the only real distinction among the wives was how many children they bore.
Like my friend, I knew I had no choice. If Commander Moosa knocked on my destiny’s door, I would go with him without a word. My family had protected me as best they could.
That evening, Baba-jan wrapped his shawl around his shoulders and left the courtyard. Everyone knew where he was going, and nobody dared to say a word. A few moments later I heard knocking on the entrance to Wahid’s house next door. This was followed by the barking of Wahid’s fighting dogs. Then I heard Wahid’s voice. Then there was silence. The sky had pulled the blanket over its daughters. Nobody went to sleep until Baba-jan’s return. He told us what Wahid had said: “Haji Sahib, we should be grateful to the Taliban that they at least come and ask for the hands of our daughters. Remember the days of the jihadis and the communists who kidnapped people’s daughters and didn’t honor them even with a glass of water? Commander Moosa is a young man and there is no harm in asking for your daughter’s hand. He is a commander. He is an important man.”
On the third day following the search, at the time of adhan, we heard a rumble as if a tank were crushing houses. Dust rose up in the street. A car engine roared outside the gate. Mushtaq burst into the house screaming, “They are here! They are coming!”
Baba-jan got up. My teeth began to rattle. I ran over to Baba-jan, saying, “If anyone gets killed because of me, I will jump into the well.”
Agha ran to the front gate with Mushtaq right behind him. Baba-jan picked up his turban. I was searching for my burqa. Madar was leaning against the wall as
still and motionless as any one of the adobe bricks in the wall behind her.
I was terrified that Maulawi Rashid would sneer at my family, read my matrimonial sermon, and hand me to a Talib who would take me away forever. Nanah-jan’s hands were trembling as she was clicking off her prayer beads faster and faster. Zahra’s terrified glances swung between our frightened faces, first to Madar, then me, then to Nanah-jan. I wasn’t the first in the long parade of doomed young neighborhood women who were snatched from their families and sent off to a cruel unknown fate—and I wouldn’t be the last. There was no end in sight to this raging trail of terror.
I said to Madar, “Where is my burqa?” She looked at me blankly. In her eyes, there was no Homeira, no house, no city. The lips that should’ve spoken or shrieked just quivered in silence.
Suddenly the sky was filled with the chatter of migrating birds returning in V formation for the spring. My eyes were filled with their wings, my heart followed their trail through the heavens. Herat’s horizon was dense with the flight of birds in a renewal of life. When I was younger, Madar often said, “Let’s tie our wishes to the wings of the birds to carry them to a faraway land where our dreams can bloom like spring flowers.”
Burqa in hand, I waited. The silence in the courtyard was shattered by someone knocking loudly on our gate. Madar crumpled, collapsing at the foot of the wall. Baba-jan came in through the front gate into the courtyard, followed by Agha, Uncle Naseer, Mushtaq, and Rafi Qannad, who was Nasreen's father. Commander Moosa and Maulawi Rashid were nowhere to be seen.
Nanah-jan’s tasbeh beads were still rattling as I heard the sound of the car driving away. No one said anything. The men sat in silence. I was the bride-to-be, waiting to be swept away with my burqa. Baba-jan kneeled in the courtyard and dried his eyes with the sash of his turban.
Commander Moosa would have performed the nekah that very night, had it not been for an urgent call summoning him to Kabul. There had been an uprising in the north and the Taliban had to gather their forces. Commander Moosa had to leave suddenly, but he was planning to return. Before he left, he whispered in Baba-jan’s ear, “Marrying a girl will dignify her.”
Baba-jan had to appear sincere and show appreciation for Commander Moosa. But we all knew it was over. Commander Moosa had set his terms. He had stolen my sleeping hours. Now he was about to own my waking hours as well.
On the fourth morning after the search, Baba-jan had the strength to get up on his own. When I heard his invocations of Allah, I rose from my bed. I filled his ablution pitcher. I spread his prayer rug in the direction of Mecca, and after my own ablution, I stood behind him for the morning prayer. At the final invocation of salaam, peace, at the end of his prayers, he looked upward, lifting the sash of his turban toward heaven. Choking on his tears, Baba-jan recited the prayers of gratitude. Then his shoulders began to shudder.
A week passed, during which rumors abounded that a clash had occurred between two factions of Taliban in Dowgharun, near the Iranian border. The commanders of two small factions had a skirmish and the conflict had reached higher-ups along the Taliban chain of command; guns were drawn, and several officers on each side of the conflict have been killed. One of them was Nasreen’s new husband. Now Rafi Qannad wanted to go to the border to find his daughter. It was decided that Uncle Basheer would go with him.
That afternoon, Agha, Uncle Basheer, and Rafi Qannad left together. For two days, we had no news of their whereabouts. On the third day, in the wee hours of the night, I heard some voices. Once I was wide awake, I recognized Agha’s voice. I ran out of my room. Madar and Nanah-jan had reached the entrance of the hallway ahead of me. Rafi Qannad was there, standing beside my father. I wasn’t wearing my head scarf. I stepped back, covering my hair with my hands. A young man in Talibani dress stood next to Rafi, and in a burst of spontaneity, I hugged him. Nanah-jan nearly fell down laughing, “Homeira, how dare you hug a stranger, a na-mahram?” Nanah-jan didn’t know the stranger was Nasreen, disguised and dressed as a man.
Nasreen’s face glowed with happiness. She could not believe that she had returned to the neighborhood. She had gone away expecting to end up in some Pakistani slave market.
I took Nasreen to the room where I, Madar, Nanah-jan, and Zahra were sleeping. We sat by the window. The moon was shining on her face.
She said, “Will it be morning soon enough so I can see my mother?”
From behind the window, I looked at the heavens. Thousands of stars had thrown away their blankets of fear and were winking at us.
When Nasreen’s mother saw her in the morning at the entrance, she collapsed and Nasreen fainted in her mother’s arms. Baba-jan leaned on the wall, letting his tears trickle into his beard.
The joy of Nasreen’s miraculous return kept the dark ghost of Commander Moosa at bay for a day or two, but his looming shadow soon returned to darken my thoughts. Nasreen and I were chopping onions in our kitchen. I told her how the Taliban came to search our house and a few days later Commander Moosa returned to ask for my hand. I told Nasreen that I was ready to go with Moosa if he came back. She said, “I understand. I went with the Talib of my own accord. I couldn’t take the risk of my father being harmed, not even a single hair on his head.”
“What kind of men are the Taliban?” I asked.
Nasreen looked at me and said, “The first night, instead of going to Khost, we turned around and headed for the Iranian border. We spent the night in a house with two girls from Rubat-e Sangui. That night he slept under my blanket. I accepted him since I was his wife. There was nothing I could do. I was afraid that he would pass me on to some other stranger. We girls have all heard a thousand stories.
“He did not turn me over to some other man, but you know what he did? For three nights, he strapped packages around my body and took me across the border in the dark of night. I don’t know why the border guards didn’t conduct a body search. Maybe no one was suspicious because I was a woman. Once I crossed the border, I was taken to Taibad; the bundles were removed and sent away. On the last night, an argument erupted over a larger package. Angry words were exchanged between the commanders. A skirmish erupted that lasted for hours. We were three girls. We waited in the house until the next morning, but none of the men returned. We climbed to the roof. We saw piles of Taliban bodies lying on top of one another in the village square. The other two girls from Rubat-e Sangui begged me to go with them. I didn’t want to go. The girls left without me. The surrounding areas didn’t seem safe anymore.
“On the second day, I climbed up to the roof, waiting for the crowds to leave the village square so I could escape. Suddenly, I recognized my father and your uncle. They stood in a corner of the square. Their faces were wrapped in their turbans, but I recognized my father by his cane. I ran to the village square. It was time for adhan. I called out ‘Father dear!’ My father turned toward me and said, ‘Go back to the house, we’ll be right behind you.’
“In the house, my father found me a set of men’s clothing that must’ve belonged to one of the dead Taliban. I found a shawl to cover my face and a man’s jacket to conceal my breasts and to cover the dried bloodstains on the shirt.”
After Nasreen went home, my ears waited in fear of a knock at our front gate. My heart lurched at the sound of every passing vehicle.
By the time spring arrived with no word from Commander Moosa, Madar said, “The commander has not returned. I hope that soil had filled his eyes.”
Madar had long said that if instead of a Talib, a Herati man asked for my hand in marriage, she would walk barefoot to Khaja Abdullah Ansari’s shrine for forty Wednesdays.
And so, in the last month of summer, we heard a knock on the front gate. A neighborhood family was asking me to marry their son. Nanah-jan shrugged her shoulders and said, “If a mischievous girl like Homeira can have a suitor in this city, no girl will be left without a husband.”
My mother was both happy and sad. “I had hoped you would be able to study. I had hoped you would w
rite the stories of each of my broken-winged birds. But my dear daughter, at this time your safety is more important than your stories and your school. Go now! God forbid Commander Moosa suddenly appears. My only happiness is in the hope that the hundred-and-twenty-day winds of Herat blow over the heads of both of us in peace and tranquility and that you remain nearby.”
Nanah-jan warned that no one should know of Commander Moosa’s proposal, as no one else would even be willing to come forward to ask for my hand. Just the name “Commander Moosa” sent chills down everyone’s spines. Madar said, “Homeira, this is a Herati family. At least you will be close by. You won’t be wandering the streets of faraway lands.”
As for me, all my dreams and aspirations were dying like unwatered flowers. Wasn’t there a chance that Commander Moosa would never come back, that I could escape marriage altogether? “Madar, I don’t want to marry. Even a Herati man will keep me from my work of writing stories.”
Madar put a comforting hand on my head.
“Homeira, wherever you go, make sure you take your pen with you. Just like I kept my thread and needle with me. Write in privacy. No one can take your pen or your story from you.”
Nanah-jan said, “Be happy that finally you too will have a husband. You should spread his prayer rug so he can perform his prayer of gratitude.”
The consensus of every family member was that it was time for me to get married.
Men came and went. Agha, Baba-jan, and my uncles received them and talked to them. In adherence to the traditions of our city, Agha and Baba-jan fixed the pishkash amount, the bridal price paid to the girl’s family. Mine was a hundred million Afghanis, the same as Aunt Aziza’s and my cousin’s. Nanah-jan said, “Make sure the bride price is high so they won’t think something is wrong with her.”
Mushtaq said, “See how much Nanah-jan loves you.”
It was the summer of 1997, two months after the mysterious disappearance of Commander Moosa. I was sitting behind the window in our house. My brother Tariq rushed in from the guest quarters and said, “It’s all over. They gave your hand in marriage.”
Dancing in the Mosque Page 13