by Sharon McKay
“Help my mother!” she cried to a woman in a burka.
The voice from under the veil said, “You must wait your turn.”
“Please, I need to telephone my father.”
The woman pointed to an old phone that hung on the wall. Yasmine called the university. The man who answered said that he would pass on the message, but really, the professor should not be disturbed.
“Please, please,” Yasmine begged. “It’s very important! Tell him that, that we were . . .” She dithered while wiping her face with the back of her hand. What to say? How to describe what happened? “Tell him that we are at the hospital. Please, please!”
Yasmine sat close to her mother and pulled her knees to her chest. Despite the heat of the day the building was humid, and the rug covering the cement floor did nothing to keep the damp away. “Mother wake up, wake up. Baba come, Baba come, Baba come,” she repeated over and over and over. What if Baba did not come? What if Mother died? What happened to girls who were left all alone?
“Baba come, Baba come, Baba come.” Yasmine closed her eyes.
There was no way to tell the time, but after a while she heard a sound, something familiar, that made her look up. “Baba!” Yasmine leaped to her feet. She saw her father running towards her along a cement walkway under stone arches. “Baba, Baba!” she screamed as she raced towards him, arms outstretched.
She could hear his labored breathing as he grew closer. “Are you hurt? What happened?” Baba asked while touching her arms, as if trying to reach in and feel her bones.
Yasmine shook her aching head. “Men came, in a truck, with clubs. They attacked Mother!”
He grabbed hold of her hand and she led him quickly back to where her mother lay.
Baba knelt down and whispered into Mother’s ear, but still she did not wake up. As soon as he saw someone who looked like a doctor, he took paper money out of his pocket. “Help my wife,” he said, trying to force it into the doctor’s hands. The doctor just shook his head. He tried another doctor, but got the same response. Yasmine stood at his side. Baba was holding her hand too tightly. His face glistened with sweat. He was tall and strong, but now he looked different, he looked frightened!
Finally, one doctor, his face pale and gaunt, took Baba aside to a corner and spoke quietly, his head bent forward.
“Never mind who’s running the government now, doctors are still being watched,” he explained. “Male doctors do not want to take the chance of attending a woman, and the only woman doctor in Herat has been forbidden to work by her husband. By looking at your wife, I think that her back is not broken but her left leg is, in two places, maybe three. Take these. It is mosaken. It will reduce the pain.” He slipped Baba some pain pills.
It was going to take days to have Mother’s leg put in a cast, so instead a brace was found for her leg. The leg would at least be immobilized. And when Baba was sure the hospital had given Mother all the help she was going to receive, he hired a foreign car to take them home. Mother was awake when Baba lifted her into the car. She moaned in pain.
As the automobile pulled up to the front of their house, they saw a small, nervous man pacing up and down the walkway. He looked at Baba and nodded. Baba carried Mother into the house and laid her on a mattress. He placed long pillows, toshaks, around her as bolsters.
“Stay with your mother, Yasmine.” Baba left them.
Only then did Yasmine start to cry, and only then did Mother speak.
“Hush, Yasmine, my daughter. I am alive, and you and your father are safe. That’s all that is important.” But the sound that came out of Mother was not like her voice. It was low and rough, as if her words were dragged over stones. Yasmine lay beside her mother, buried her face in the pillow, and tried to muffle her sobs.
“Yasmine, I want to speak to you.” Baba stood in the doorway now.
Again, Yasmine wiped her face with the back of her hand, tucked a loose strand of hair into her headscarf, and followed Baba out into the first room, the one that was reserved for guests.
“This is Professor Maywand,” said Baba.
Yasmine nodded her head in acknowledgment.
“I hear that you speak English.” The professor spoke gently to her.
At first Yasmine did not look up. She had learned a lot in a year. Do not meet a man’s gaze. Do not be alone with a boy who is not a relative. Do not let any skin show. There were many do nots. Mother was teaching her what was halal, or correct for Muslims, and what was haraam, or unacceptable, but it was complicated. But inside she was still a British girl, still the girl who could walk to school by herself, play sports, and draw and read whatever she wanted.
“Yes, I speak English.” Yasmine deliberately raised her head and looked the man in the eye.
“Then I will speak English to you. It is good that I practice. I am very sad to hear that your mother was attacked.” He spoke slowly, enunciating every word. “We want to know if the attack was deliberate or random. What were you doing just before it happened?”
Yasmine, shaking, throat dry, could not think of what to say, so she repeated the words of the song, “I’m a friend of children. I am beautiful . . .” The thought was sudden. Was it because they were singing? Were they at fault?
“You were singing?”
Yasmine nodded. Why did she feel ashamed? They had done nothing wrong.
The professor’s expression changed as he ran his hands through his hair and looked up at the ceiling.
“Your wife should not have called attention to herself that way,” he said to Baba. “Herat is not as dangerous as Kandahar City, but things happen. You should have warned her.”
Startled, Yasmine looked at Baba. It wasn’t his fault!
“Go back to your mother, Yasmine,” said Baba with quiet resignation.
Yasmine dithered. At home she would have spoken up. She would have said something, defended her father, become angry . . . but here things were different. It was hard to know what to do. Silently, part angry and part frightened, she left the room, and returned to her mother.
The medication was working. Mother was asleep. Yasmine sat beside her and listened to the words of the men in the next room. It was hard not to hear. Wooden doors did not divide the rooms the way they did at home. Instead, beautiful curtains and long rugs hung in the doorways. Words drifted past unimpeded.
“If the attack was random,” said Professor Maywand, “then perhaps there is no cause for real alarm. But there are other issues. There have been complaints at the university about the lectures you give in your World Religions course. Is it true that you have said in your classroom that Christians, Jews, and Muslims are all connected through Abraham?”
“Abraham is recognized as patriarch and prophet by all three religions,” said Baba, with a hint of stubbornness.
“And did you say that one day, in the far future, this fact, as you call it, might unite us all?” The man sounded tired.
Yasmine went to the doorway and stood behind the curtain.
“Do we all not want universal peace? Is that not what we strive for? It is a university, a place for discussion.” Baba sounded indignant now.
“Here, today, discussion can kill, my friend. We are living in a dark time. We suffered through many years of Russian occupation, and then came chaos and fighting between warlords, each with their private armies. But how could we know that the worst was yet to come? We thought the Taliban, ruling in the name of Allah, would bring us stability.” The professor stopped talking for a moment. Yasmine crept closer to the curtain. “You and your wife have been very naive. Your naiveté puts you in danger, and it puts your colleagues at the university in danger, too. Please, take a leave of absence and let this settle.”
Baba started to protest, but the professor began again.
“You have given up a great deal to come here—I understand and appreciate that—and your name brings great prestige to our university. Your intentions are good, but you are of no use to us if you are dead.
They say that the Taliban have been defeated, but, as you have just discovered, they reemerge at will. I think this conflict is a long way from being over.”
There was silence again. Perhaps Father was letting the advice sink in.
“Kam Air flies directly to Kabul,” the professor went on. “From there you can take a commercial flight back to London. When the country is more stable, we will welcome your return. My friend,” he said sadly, “dying is easy in this country, it is staying alive that is hard.”
Yasmine crawled back beside her mother. “Mother, wake up. Mother, we are going home!” she whispered. Was it wrong to feel happy? She closed her eyes and slept.
Chapter 3
Call Back to the Land
Baba hired an old woman to come and nurse Mother. Over the next month Mother improved, but still she could only stand on wooden crutches for short periods.
Baba said that Yasmine should not go to school anymore. If the attack on Mother was not just random, then it would be best, he thought, if they were seen in public as little as possible. And so, the three of them were confined to their four rooms.
At first it was fine, but after three weeks it was not fine, it was lonely. And worse, a change had come over Baba. He was distracted and nervous, had stopped reading, and at night he paced the floor. Baba simply wasn’t Baba. For one thing, he had grown a beard and wore baggy clothes and a turban. Mother teased him and said that he would never get on a plane dressed like that. “You look like a Talib,” she said. Baba did not think that was very funny, but it was the first time Mother had laughed since the attack, so he laughed too. Yasmine did not laugh. If he could not get on a plane, how would they get home?
“What are you drawing?” he asked Yasmine one day.
She held up a picture of her best friend, Melissa. Her Third Form art teacher in Oxford had said that she had a gift for portraits.
Baba sighed. “My dear, if we are to survive we must make changes. You must not draw faces. It is frowned on,” he said. He went through her sketchbooks and pulled out portraits. “I must keep you and your mother safe. And perhaps we should rethink some of these books.” Baba pulled out all the copies of the Children’s Companion magazines that they had brought from London. “They are too Christian,” he explained. And so another reminder of Yasmine’s old life was gone.
Weeks passed, and still there was no talk around the house about leaving Herat. Yasmine just had to know. The day came when her mother’s leg was not so sore and she was feeling a bit better. Yasmine crouched down beside her and asked, in a shy whisper, “Mother, will we go home soon?”
Startled, Mother looked at her daughter. “What do you mean?”
“I thought . . .” Something inside her fell.
“Come. Sit.” Mother patted the pillow beside her. “What happened was terrible, awful, but what would it say about us if we ran away?”
Yasmine couldn’t believe her ears. Why would they stay where they could be attacked and beaten just for singing a children’s song? How could staying possibly make sense?
“But the professor said . . .” Yasmine tried to keep her voice from breaking.
“Professor Maywand said that your father has made enemies, and that by staying at the university he is putting other people in danger, too.” Mother paused. “Do you remember how it was that your father came to England?”
Yasmine nodded. “Baba’s mother and older sisters were killed by a Russian bomb. Grandfather took Baba to England when he was ten years old. Grandfather sent Baba to a good school. Baba worked hard,” said Yasmine. She had heard that story a million times.
Mother nodded. “We love England and we were happy there, but your father felt a call back to the land. It’s a feeling many Afghans who live outside our country have. I feel it too. Do you remember the poem written by Khalili? ‘. . . But all the friends gather in the khak’s heart in the end / So in death as in life we are always in the company of friends,’” quoted Mother. “We belong here, Yasmine. To run away would be cowardly. If we want our country back we have to fight for it. The Westerners cannot do it for us. Do you understand?”
“Are we going to stay here?” Yasmine tried to keep her voice level.
“Grandfather has a house in Bazaar-E-Panjwayi, in Panjwayi District, Kandahar,” said Mother.
“But the man, Professor Maywand, said that Kandahar was very dangerous.” Yasmine could hardly believe what she was hearing.
“Kandahar City is dangerous, but we are going to a village in Kandahar Province. Your grandfather was born in the village, he is respected there. He paid money to rebuild the mosque. People in small villages sometimes do not accept strangers easily—it is the same around the world—but your father has made his pilgrimage to Mecca, so he is a hajji. He too will be respected. Your father has hired people to clean up the house for us. He will take a break from the university, and write his book. I will get better, and when all this is forgotten, we will return.” Mother combed her fingers through Yasmine’s long black hair.
“When do we leave?” She felt tired, but then doing nothing for weeks on end had been exhausting. And maybe it wasn’t what she’d been hoping for, but there was no sense in crying. Anyway, at least in the country she could go outside.
No one wanted to drive them to the village. There were bandits on the roads. They would have to cross territories controlled by warlords, and there was always the Taliban. “Too dangerous. Too dangerous,” said one driver after another. Finally Baba found an old man who owned a car and a small truck big enough to carry a generator, desk, blankets, rugs, pillows, and even a proper bed so that Mother would be more comfortable. The man’s son would follow behind in the truck.
Baba and Yasmine gently laid Mother out along the back seat of the car. Yasmine scrunched down on the floor beside a basket of fruit and naan to eat along the way.
“Where is your wife’s burka?” the driver, a kindly man with a round face, asked.
“She does not own one,” Baba said.
The driver pointed to a shop covered with chain-link fence. “Buy one for your wife and another for your daughter.”
Yasmine was about to protest, but Mother squeezed her hand.
Baba returned with two silk, indigo-blue burkas, with crowns made of silver thread. The driver shook his head. “They are too beautiful and will draw attention. Never mind your daughter. She is young. Get another one for your wife, quickly.” Baba tossed the new burkas into the car and looked around, his eyes searching the road.
A woman in a shabby, torn, saffron-colored burka sat against a wall at the end of the road. Her head was bent, an elbow rested on a knee, and her cupped hand was held up. Baba crouched down in front of the beggar and whispered a few words. The woman shook her head furiously. Baba stood then and ran into the shop. When he emerged, he held a new burka. Again he crouched before the beggar. This time she snatched the burka out of his hand and disappeared behind the shop.
When Baba returned to the car, he held the woman’s ugly burka under his arm. Yasmine covered her nose. It stank like a goat’s pen.
The city of Herat was soon almost behind them. Once past the timber-seller, where great logs pointing up into the air looked ready to tumble and squash pedestrians, men on bikes, and little rickshaws on the road below, they ventured out onto the highway. Land mines and scorching heat had turned the highway into a landscape of tiny blistered volcanoes. Often they had to pull over for a convoy of military trucks to pass.
It took days to reach the village. During the day they ate from the food basket, and at night the driver arranged for houses to sleep in along the way. Time passed in a blur.
“We are here,” announced the driver.
Yasmine, asleep on folded arms, woke with a start, bolted up, and pushed her face against the dusty car window.
“Yasmine, no!” Mother reached over and yanked Yasmine’s scarf up over her daughter’s head. Yasmine fumbled a bit, then smoothed her hijab over her head with a flat palm.
/> The road was crowded with jingle trucks decorated with swirls of red, yellow, and green paint. Silver trinkets dangled across the windows. On the other side of the trucks, heaps of sandbags led up to a massive door that looked as though it belonged to a fort from medieval times. Soldiers carrying guns peered down from a great height. And then came a whirling sound. Yasmine stuck her head out of the car’s window and looked up. Helicopters! There were two, she could see their underbellies and guns sticking out each side. They were scary, like giant, killer insects.
“Yasmine, that is the army base, it’s called a FOB. It stands for Forward Operation Base. Many soldiers, Canadian and American mostly, from the United Nations, live inside. There is a landing pad for helicopters inside the FOB. But those soldiers . . .” Baba pointed to men wearing helmets, black vests over blue uniforms, their pants tucked into black boots. “They belong to the Afghan National Army, and they work with the UN soldiers. Your grandfather’s village is over there.” Baba motioned past a row of Afghan vehicles to a walled village across the road and beyond.
The car, and the truck that followed behind carrying their furniture and boxes, nudged through the line of multicolored trucks and drove into the village. The village was nothing like the villages Yasmine had seen in England. This village was made up of mud houses that had been polished to a smooth yellow shine and winked in the sunlight. All together, the walls, the homes, and the buildings looked as though they had sprung fully formed from the earth.
The two vehicles rumbled down the main street kicking up puffs of dust. People stared. The houses had doors that were made of tin, and many windows were covered with plastic sheets. They passed a man-made stream, its banks covered with grass and leafy trees giving it shade.
“Stop here,” said Baba. He got out of the car and walked over to a man tending meat on a grill that lay across a large steel drum. Plastic tables and chairs were on one side of the grill and toshaks, on top of old rugs, were on the other side. A grandfather, holding a baby boy with eyelids smudged with black surma to ward off flies, sang to the child while tickling him under the chin.
