The Breadwinner

by Deborah Ellis

  “Finally I left the closet and went downstairs. There were bodies all over the street. Some soldiers drove by in a truck. They forbade us to move the bodies of our families, or even cover them up. They said we must stay inside.

  “I was so scared they would come back for me! When it got dark, I ran outside. I ran from building to building, looking out for the soldiers. There were bodies everywhere. The wild dogs had started eating some of the bodies, so there were pieces of people on the sidewalks and in the streets. I even saw a dog carrying a person’s arm in its mouth!

  “I couldn’t face anything else. There was a truck stopped on the street. Its motor was running. I jumped into the back and hid among the bundles. Wherever the truck was going, it couldn’t be worse than where I was.

  “We traveled a long, long time. When I finally got out, I was in Kabul. I went from the truck to the building where Parvana found me.” Homa started to cry. “I just left them there! I left my mother and my father and my brother lying in the street for the dogs to eat!”

  Mrs. Weera put her arms around Homa, but the girl could not be comforted. She cried until she collapsed into an exhausted sleep.

  Parvana couldn’t move. She couldn’t speak. All she could do was picture her mother, sisters and brother, dead in the streets of a strange city.

  “There’s no evidence your family is hurt, Parvana,” Mrs. Weera said. “Your mother is a smart, strong woman, and so is Nooria. We must believe they are alive. We must not give up hope!”

  Parvana was fresh out of hope. She did what her mother had done. She crawled onto the toshak, covered herself with a quilt and resolved to stay there forever.

  For two days she stayed on the toshak. “This is what the women in our family do when we’re sad,” she said to Mrs. Weera.

  “They don’t stay there forever,” Mrs. Weera said. “They get up again, and they fight back.”

  Parvana didn’t answer her. She didn’t want to get up again. She was tired of fighting back.

  Mrs. Weera was gentle with her at first, but she had her hands full with Homa and her grandchild.

  Late in the afternoon of the second day, Shauzia showed up at Parvana’s door.

  “I’m very glad to see you,” Mrs. Weera said, nodding toward Parvana. They went out onto the landing to speak for a moment, out of Parvana’s earshot. Then they came back in and, after fetching a couple of buckets of water, Shauzia sat down on the toshak beside Parvana.

  She talked about ordinary things for awhile, how her sales had been, people she’d seen in the market, conversations she’d had with some of the tea boys and other working boys. Finally she said, “I don’t like working alone. The marketplace isn’t the same when you’re not there. Won’t you come back?”

  Put to her like that, Parvana knew she could not refuse. She’d known all along that she would have to get up. She wasn’t really about to stay on that toshak until she died. Part of her wanted to slip away from everything, but another part wanted to get up and stay alive and continue to be Shauzia’s friend. With a little prodding from Shauzia, that was the part that won.

  Parvana got out of bed and carried on as before. She did her work in the market, fetched water, listened to Mrs. Weera’s stories and got to know Homa. She did all these things because she didn’t know what else to do. But she moved through her days as though she were moving through an awful nightmare—a nightmare from which there was no release in the morning.

  Then, late one afternoon, Parvana came home from work to find two men gently helping her father up the steps to the apartment. He was alive. At least part of the nightmare was over.

  FIFTEEN

  The man who came back from prison was barely recognizable, but Parvana knew who he was. Although his white shalwar kameez was now gray and tattered, although his face was drawn and pale, he was still her father. Parvana clung to him so tightly she had to be pulled away by Mrs. Weera so that her father could lie down.

  “We found him on the ground outside the prison,” one of the men who had brought him home said to Mrs. Weera. “The Taliban released him, but he was unable to go anywhere on his own. He told us where he lived, so my friend and I put him on our karachi and brought him here.”

  Parvana was down on the toshak with her father, clinging to him and weeping. She knew that the men stayed to tea, but it wasn’t until they were getting up to leave, to make it back to their homes before curfew, that she remembered her manners.

  She got to her feet. “Thank you for bringing my father back,” she said.

  The men left. Parvana started to lie back down beside her father, but Mrs. Weera stopped her. “Let him rest. There will be time to talk tomorrow.”

  Parvana obeyed, but it took days of Mrs. Weera’s careful nursing before Father even started to get well. Most of the time he was too ill and weary to talk. He coughed a lot.

  “That prison must have been cold and damp,” Mrs. Weera said. Parvana helped her make a broth and fed it to her father hot, off a spoon, until he was able to sit up and eat.

  “Now you are both my daughter and my son,” Father said when he was well enough to notice her new appearance. He rubbed his hand over her cropped hair and smiled.

  Parvana made many trips to the water tap. Father had been beaten badly, and the poultice bandages Mrs. Weera put over his wounds had to be changed and washed frequently. Homa helped, too, mostly by keeping Mrs. Weera’s granddaughter quiet so Father could rest.

  Parvana didn’t mind that he was unable to talk right away. She was overjoyed just to have him home. She spent her days earning money, and her evenings helping Mrs. Weera. When her father felt better, she would read to him from his books.

  Homa knew some English from studying it in school, and one day Parvana came home from work to hear Homa and Father talking English to each other. Homa hesitated a lot, but Father’s words flowed smoothly into each other.

  “Did you bring us home another educated woman today?” Father asked Parvana, smiling.

  “No, Father,” Parvana replied. “I just brought home onions.” For some reason, everyone thought that was funny, and there was laughter in Parvana’s home for the first time since her father’s arrest.

  One thing in her life had been repaired. Her father was home now. Maybe the rest of the family would come back, too.

  Parvana was filled with hope. In the market she chased after customers just like the real boys did. Mrs. Weera suggested some medicine for Father, and Parvana worked and worked until she had earned the money to buy it. It seemed to help.

  “I feel like I’m working for something now,” she told Shauzia one day as they walked around looking for customers. “I’m working to get my family back.”

  “I’m working for something, too,” Shauzia said. “I’m working to get away from Afghanistan.”

  “Won’t you miss your family?” Parvana asked.

  “My grandfather has started to look for a husband for me,” Shauzia replied. “I overheard him talking to my grandmother. He said I should get married soon, that since I’m so young, I’ll fetch a good bride-price, and they will have lots of money to live on.”

  “Won’t your mother stop him?”

  “What could she do? She has to live with them. She has nowhere else to go.” Shauzia stopped walking and looked at Parvana. “I can’t be married! I won’t be married!”

  “How will your mother manage without you there? How will she eat?”

  “What can I do?” Shauzia asked, the question coming out as a wail. “If I stay here and get married, my life will be over. If I leave, maybe I’ll have a chance. There must be some place in this world where I can live. Am I wrong to think like this?” She wiped the tears from her face. “What else can I do?”

  Parvana didn’t know how to comfort her friend.

  One day Mrs. Weera had a visitor, a member of the women’s group who had just come out of Mazar. Parvana was at work, but Father told her about the visit that evening.

  “A lot of people ha
ve fled Mazar,” he said. “They are staying in refugee camps outside the city”

  “Is that where Mother is?”

  “It’s possible. We won’t know unless we go to the camps and look.”

  “How can we do that? Are you well enough to travel?”

  “I will never be well enough,” Father said, “but we should go anyway.”

  “When do we leave?” Parvana asked.

  “As soon as I can arrange transport. Can you carry a message for me to the men who brought me home from prison? I think, with their help, we can be on our way in a couple of weeks.”

  Parvana had been wanting to ask her father something for awhile. “Why did the Taliban let you go?”

  “I don’t know why they arrested me. How would I know why they let me go?”

  Parvana would have to be satisfied with that for an answer.

  Her life was about to change again. She was surprised at how calm she felt. She decided it was because her father was back.

  “We’ll find them,” Parvana said with complete confidence. “We’ll find them and bring them home.”

  Mrs. Weera was going to Pakistan. “Homa will come with me. We’ll put her to work there.” They were going to link up with the members of the women’s group who were organizing Afghan women in exile.

  “Where will you stay?”

  “I have a cousin in one of the camps,” Mrs. Weera replied. “She has been wanting me to come and live with her.”

  “Is there a school there?”

  “If there isn’t, we’ll start one. Life is very difficult for Afghans in Pakistan. There is a lot of work to do.”

  Parvana had an idea. “Take Shauzia with you!”

  “Shauzia?”

  “She wants to leave. She hates it here. Couldn’t she go with you? She could be your escort!”

  “Shauzia has family here. Do you mean to say she would just leave her family? Desert the team just because the game is rough?”

  Parvana said no more. In a way, Mrs. Weera was right. That was what Shauzia was doing. But Shauzia was also right. Didn’t she have a right to seek out a better life? Parvana couldn’t decide who was more right.

  A few days before they were to leave for Mazar, Parvana was sitting on her blanket in the marketplace when something hit her on the head. It was a tiny camel made out of beads. The Window Woman was still alive! She was all right, or at least well enough to let Parvana know she was still there. Parvana wanted to jump up and down and dance. She wanted to yell and wave at the painted window. Instead she sat quietly and tried to think of a way to say goodbye.

  She was almost home that afternoon when she thought of a way.

  Heading back to the market after lunch, she carefully dug up some wildflowers that were growing among the bombed-out ruins. She had seen them growing there in other years, and hoped she was right in thinking they were the kind that grew year after year. If she planted the flowers in the spot where she usually put her blanket, the Window Woman would know she wasn’t coming back. The flowers would be something pretty to look at. She hoped they would make a good present.

  In her spot in the market, Parvana dug up the hard soil first by pounding into it with her ankle. She used her hands, too, as well as a rock she found nearby.

  The men and boys in the market gathered around to watch her. Anything different was entertainment.

  “Those flowers won’t grow in that soil,” someone said. “There are no nutrients in it.”

  “Even if they grow, they will be trampled.”

  “The marketplace is no spot for flowers. Why are you planting them there?”

  Through the voices of derision came another voice. “Do none of you appreciate nature? This boy has undertaken to bring a bit of beauty into our gray marketplace, and do you thank him? Do you help him?” An old man pushed his way to the front of the little gathering. With difficulty, he knelt down to help Parvana plant the flowers. “Afghans love beautiful things,” he said, “but we have seen so much ugliness, we sometimes forget how wonderful a thing like a flower is.”

  He asked one of the tea boys hovering nearby for some water from the tea shop. It was fetched, and he poured it around the flowers, soaking the earth around them.

  The plants had wilted. They didn’t stand up properly.

  “Are they dead?” Parvana asked.

  “No, no, not dead. They may look scraggly and dying now,” he said, “but the roots are good. When the time is right, these roots will support plants that are healthy and strong.” He gave the earth a final pat, and Parvana and one of the others helped him up. He smiled once more at Parvana, then walked away.

  Parvana waited by her flowers until the crowd had gone. When she was sure no one was watching, she looked up at the window and waved a quick goodbye. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw someone wave back.

  Two days later they were ready to leave. They were going to travel by truck, just as the rest of the family had done.

  “Am I traveling as your son or your daughter?” Parvana asked Father.

  “You decide,” he said. “Either way, you will be my little Malali.”

  “Look at what’s here!” Mrs. Weera said. After making sure the coast was clear, she took several copies of Mother’s magazine out from under her burqa. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  Parvana flipped through the magazine quickly before hiding it again. “It’s wonderful,” she said.

  “Tell your mother that copies are being sent out to women all over the world. She has helped to let the world know what is happening in Afghanistan. Be sure you tell her that. What she did was very important. And tell her we need her back, to work on the next issue.”

  “I’ll tell her.” She gave Mrs. Weera a hug. Both Mrs. Weera and Homa were wearing burqas, but she could tell by hugging them who was who.

  It was time to leave. Suddenly, just as the truck was ready to pull out onto the road, Shauzia appeared.

  “You made it!” Parvana said, hugging her friend.

  “Goodbye, Parvana,” Shauzia said. She handed Parvana a bag of dried apricots. “I’m leaving soon, too. I met some nomads who will take me to Pakistan as a shepherd. I’m not waiting until next spring. It would be too lonely here without you.”

  Parvana didn’t want to say goodbye. “When will we see each other again?” she asked in a panic. “How will we keep in touch?”

  “I’ve got it all figured out,” Shauzia said. “We’ll meet again on the first day of spring, twenty years from now.”

  “All right. Where?”

  “The top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. I told you I was going to France.”

  Parvana laughed. “I’ll be there,” she said. “We won’t say goodbye, then. We’ll just say so long for now.”

  “Until next time,” Shauzia said.

  Parvana hugged her friend one last time, then climbed into the truck. They waved to each other as the truck rolled away.

  Twenty years from now, Parvana thought. What would happen in those twenty years? Would she still be in Afghanistan? Would Afghanistan finally have peace? Would she go back to school, have a job, be married?

  The future stretched unknown down the road in front of her. Her mother was somewhere ahead with her sisters and her brother, but what else they would find, Parvana had no idea. Whatever it was, she felt ready for it. She even found herself looking forward to it.

  Parvana settled back in the truck beside her father. She popped a dried apricot into her mouth and rolled its sweetness around on her tongue. Through the dusty front windshield she could see Mount Parvana, the snow on its peak sparkling in the sun.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Afghanistan is a small country that lies between Europe and Asia. It contains mountain ranges, fast-flowing rivers and golden deserts. Its fertile valleys once produced an abundance of fruit, wheat and vegetables.

  Throughout history, explorers and traders have passed through Afghanistan and tried to control it for their own interests. The country has bee
n more or less continuously at war since 1978, when American-backed fighters opposed the Soviet-supported government. In 1980, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the war escalated, with the United States backing Afghan freedom fighters, many of whom were war lords. The fighting was fierce, cruel and prolonged.

  After the Soviets were defeated in 1989, a civil war erupted, as various groups fought for control of the country. Millions of Afghans became refugees, and some still live in huge camps in Pakistan, Iran and Russia. Many people have spent their whole lives in these camps, and millions of Afghans have been killed, maimed or blinded.

  The Taliban militia, one of the groups that the US and Pakistan once funded, trained and armed, took control of the capital city of Kabul in September 1996. They imposed extremely restrictive laws on girls and women. Schools for girls were closed down, women were no longer allowed to hold jobs, and strict dress codes were enforced. Books were burned, televisions smashed, and music in any form was forbidden.

  In the fall of 2001, al Qaeda, a terrorist group based in Afghanistan and protected by the Taliban, launched attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in New York City. In response, the United States led a coalition of nations into bombing Afghanistan and drove the Taliban from power. Elections were held and a new government and constitution were set up. A number of schools for boys and girls were opened, and in some parts of the country women were allowed back into the work force.

  However, Afghanistan is far from being a nation of peace, for many reasons. The Taliban has returned to fight a very effective guerrilla war against the government and foreign forces. Afghanistan has become a major producer of opium, from which heroin is made. There is a great deal of corruption at all levels of government. Finally, Afghans, like people around the world, are uncomfortable with foreign forces fighting in their country. Struggles for women’s rights continue as well, with girls’ schools being burned and women activists being assassinated.