A Fort of Nine Towers: An Afghan Family Story

by Qais Akbar Omar

  “From the east to the west, and from the north to the south, there’ll be no mountains at all. You’ll be able to see an egg from one corner of the world to the other. All the dead bodies from the beginning of time, which goes back centuries, will come back alive, and God will put the sinners in hell and the honest in paradise.” I wanted her to stop, but she kept on, making grotesque faces to emphasize her words.

  “Hell is full of fire and wild and dangerous animals. The sinners will die, and be reborn, and die and be reborn, and will always suffer. And that is where you are going, because yesterday you stole my pencil, and lied to Father that the pencil was yours, and then you blamed me for using your pencil. You will go straight to hell, because you committed three big sins. And you will have to stay there for a very long time.” I was starting to cry.

  “But I didn’t mean it, and I gave it back to you. I was just joking and teasing you,” I wailed.

  “It doesn’t matter; you made me suffer. If I don’t forgive you, you will go to hell,” she said, and she was very firm.

  “What do you want me to do for you to forgive me?” I begged.

  “You have to kiss my hands and my feet, then buy me a package of candy in school tomorrow. Then I will think about forgiving you,” she said.

  “But you said it was doomsday. There is no tomorrow!” I said.

  “Oh, yes! I forgot. But you must kiss my hands and my feet. Hurry, or you won’t have enough time!” she warned.

  I hesitated for a minute and did not know what to do.

  “Hurry up, if the sun rises now, then your apology won’t be acceptable,” she said. “Start by kissing the sole of my foot.”

  I looked at the starry sky and was doubtful that the sun would rise at 8:00 p.m. But when I looked at my sister, she was grimly serious. She was holding up her right foot.

  I bent down to kiss her sole. That distracted my father. He looked at me kneeling on the ground getting my clothes dirty and asked, “Hey, hey, what are you doing?”

  My sister shrieked and ran away. If I had been sure that this was just one of her stupid jokes, I would have run after her. But I wanted to be certain about doomsday first.

  I asked my father, “Is it true that it is doomsday?”

  He laughed as he ran his hand through my long hair, which was thick, wavy, and brown in those days and made me look like a foreigner.

  “Why is everyone shouting?” I asked him impatiently.

  “Because they want the Mujahedin to come to Kabul and make the Russians leave Afghanistan,” he replied, grinning with joy at the idea, and then started yelling again.

  Sometimes we had seen Russian soldiers when I was very small. The Russians had blue eyes, red hair, and white skin. They threw candy to us when they rumbled by in their huge tanks. We always yelled “Spaseva,” though we did not know what it meant, and they smiled.

  For other Afghans, the Russians brought bombs, not candy. Whole villages and large neighborhoods in cities were wiped out by the Russians dropping one bomb after another from their planes, which seemed to fly only a few meters above the houses. They did this if they thought there was even one person living there who was opposing them. Everyone was slaughtered, the guilty and the innocent. But how can a man be guilty when all he wants is to protect his family and his land from invaders?

  Afghans had only their old hunting guns and their determination to defend themselves against the Russians. Every village in Afghanistan, however, has a council of elders called a shura. Once the elders have decided that the village will do something, every family in the village must do it. The shuras decided that all the men should form fighting groups and join with others all over Afghanistan. They did, and they called themselves Mujahedin, the Holy Warriors.

  My grandfather, father, uncles, and Grandfather’s guests had often talked about the Mujahedin long before they came to Kabul. In fact, people had been talking about them from the time they were formed in Pakistan and Iran. When anyone spoke of them, they often referred to them proudly as “our Mujahedin brothers, who will come and liberate this country from these religionless and Communist Russians.”

  As kids, we heard the Mujahedin spoken of with such respect that we could not wait to see them.

  For ten years, they had fought relentlessly against the Russians. The Americans had sent more powerful weapons, and that had helped. Finally, the Russian soldiers were driven out of Afghanistan. Their defeat was so devastating that it helped end Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. But the new Russian government still tried to control Afghanistan. They put Afghans in charge who had been educated in Russia, and sent them lots of money, as well as food and fuel. But even with all the Russians’ help, everyone knew that the Afghan government could not last for long.

  My grandfather and his sons talked about it whenever we ate together. One of my uncles imported things from Russia. Like all Afghans, they wanted the Russians to stop interfering with our country, but they did not know what this would mean for their business.

  Now the Mujahedin were coming to Kabul to drive away even these Afghans who were running the government for the Russians. After twelve years of turmoil, Afghanistan would become a place of peace again.

  I could not hold back any longer. I started saying “Allah-hu-Akbar, Allah-hu-Akbar,” first in a shy voice, then louder and louder.

  * * *

  In the first weeks of the year 1371 by the Afghan calendar (April 1992), the Mujahedin finally took control of Kabul and the rest of the country. A few months before, the Russian government had decided to stop sending money and supplies to the Afghans they had put in charge of our government. Without the Russians’ support, the prices for food and everything else, such as flour, cooking oil, rice, beans, chickpeas, sugar, soap, and clothes, quickly started going up and up.

  Until the Russians had left Afghanistan three years before, everybody who worked for the government received coupons for these items, which they could buy at the end of each month for a very low price from the government stores. When there were several people in one family working for the government, they often had so much that they could sell what they did not need in the black market, and at a price higher than they paid, but still much cheaper than the market price. Also, the quality of the Russian goods was much better than most of the other things in the market. But once the Russians had left, the coupons stopped.

  Food became hard to find in the markets. Even the large food supply in our house began to shrink. We no longer had five things at each meal but only beans with bread, or boiled potato and bread, or rice and slices of tomato and onion. When we asked our mother where all the vegetables were that she usually served along with chicken or lamb, she would make a joke: “The seeds for the vegetables have not been planted yet, the lamb is still a baby, and the chicken is still an egg.”

  There were times when my two younger sisters would not eat breakfast, because they wanted to have jam and butter to put on their naan. But when my mother put two extra spoonfuls of sugar in their milk, they drank it happily with a piece of naan. Somehow our mother managed to keep us fed.

  One day, even though there was very little food, we had a big party after my mother had given birth to my little brother.

  My father was overjoyed to have a second son. To celebrate, he went out to buy a big cake. A couple of hours later he came back with a cake no bigger than a brick. As soon as we saw it, we all laughed, thinking that he was making a joke. He laughed with us as he handed the cake to my mother. Then he told us that he had gone to about twenty shops and could not find even one other cake.

  My parents and sisters, with some of my aunts and cousins, stuck a few small candles on the small cake, lit them, and after a few moments everybody blew them out. Then my father cut the cake into very, very small pieces. As he handed everyone a piece, he joked, “At least it is enough to fill the cracks between your teeth.” We all laughed.

  I was so hungry, though, that I swallowed my piece half-chewed. I asked for
another. My father looked at me and said, “Sorry, son, nothing left. Wait for next year, when you will have another brother, Insh’allah, then you can have your second piece.” Everybody laughed. I never did have any more brothers, but in the years that followed God granted me two more sisters.

  As the shortages became more severe, the government became more desperate, and the anger of ordinary Afghans increased. The government tried many things to calm the situation, but they did not know what to do. They tried to work out a deal with the Mujahedin, but it was too late. The president, Dr. Najibullah, fled to the United Nations compound in Kabul to seek asylum. The time of the Communists had ended, and the time of the Mujahedin had begun.

  When I heard that the Mujahedin were coming, I had expected to see heroes in uniforms and shiny boots. But they were dressed like villagers with big turbans, the traditional baggy pants called shalwar, and the long, tunic-like shirts called kamiz. Their waistcoats were filled with grenades and bullets. They all had beards, mustaches, and smelly shoes that wrapped up stinky feet; not one was without a gun.

  On TV, the female announcers now covered their heads with scarves. Women singers were no longer seen. Instead, we saw men with big turbans and long beards sitting on the floor, reciting the Holy Koran. The male TV announcers started wearing shalwar kamiz instead of a pressed suit and tie. The TV programs were now filled with interviews with the men we would come to know as commanders. They were talking about their factions, and what they wanted to do for Afghanistan.

  They all sounded like professors of the Holy Koran in the way they talked about Islam, and its importance for Muslims and Afghans. They all connected themselves to the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, and claimed to be descendants of Arabs to make themselves sound like they were linked closely to the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, even though we all know that Afghans are descendants of Zoroastrians, Jews, Greeks, Mongols, Aryans, and many other people, as well as of the Arabs who entered our history much later.

  * * *

  Two months before the arrival of the Mujahedin, we had been taught in school that we are related to monkeys. The teacher told us that little by little some of the monkeys changed and became more like humans. Some of them did not want to be human and civilized, because there are many problems in civilizations. We had a series of pictures in our textbooks showing how monkeys became human.

  Our teacher said, “Humans are a kind of animal, and animals were created by nature.”

  “Who created nature?” I asked.

  “Nature was self-created,” our teacher said.

  He took us to the Kabul Zoo to see the monkeys and to compare their faces with ours. None of the monkeys looked like anyone I knew, until I saw a cage with some new monkeys that had just arrived from India. One of them looked exactly like our teacher.

  Excitedly, I raced to tell him, “There is a monkey that looks exactly like you.”

  My teacher was with my classmates and two other teachers. All of them laughed. He came close to me and squeezed my left ear very hard and whispered, “Students don’t talk to their teacher like this.”

  “Maybe he was one of your ancestors,” I persisted.

  By then, my classmates were confirming my observation. Our teacher shouted at the other students that it was time to leave, though we were supposed to have spent the rest of the day in the zoo.

  After the Mujahedin came to Kabul, our same teacher now taught us from a new textbook called The Creation of Adam. It did not say anything about monkeys.

  We learned that we all came from Adam and Eve. Our teacher started saying things like, “The history of humans started from Adam and Eve, and the earth existed long before them. Do not let Shaitan be your guide; he misled Eve and Adam and drove them out of paradise.”

  I was confused. “What happened to the monkeys?” I asked our teacher, “And nature?”

  The teacher sat on the edge of the desk, and for a minute he did not say anything. “The monkeys and nature are Communist perceptions.” His voice was very calm, and he looked straight into my eyes as if there were no one else in the class. “The Islamic perception is: God is the creator of nature and all creatures.” Now he was looking at everyone. “Adam is the father of all humans,” he said.

  I was still confused. I came home and asked Grandfather what all these things meant.

  He told me, “Time will show you the truth. You are too young now. Wait and be patient, you will find answers to your questions.”

  I did not know why grown-ups always said that I was too young now. I wanted to grow up, be tall, and have a mustache and some wrinkles on my forehead, and snore when I slept and know everything.

  * * *

  Once the Mujahedin were in control, everything was cheap, and food became plentiful for a few months after they had opened the government food stores. For the first time in years, people could travel anywhere in Afghanistan without worrying about being caught in a crossfire if some group of fighters suddenly started attacking government cars or Russian military vehicles from their hiding places.

  Grandfather was very optimistic. It was springtime, and it felt like the whole world was making a new beginning. Several times, he invited some of the Mujahedin to our house, served them good food, and treated them like his best friends. My father shared Grandfather’s feelings at the beginning. But after a while, he began to have doubts. He did not like how they were running the country.

  Within weeks, fighting between some of the Mujahedin factions broke out in certain areas of Kabul, small incidents at first. People said, “There must be some misunderstandings. In a family, there are always squabbles. They will solve it.”

  But those small fights became big fights. Chaos started spreading all over Afghanistan. Afghans who had a little money or relatives in other countries quickly left. Others who stayed were beaten up, or had their property stolen. We heard about women who were raped by the soldiers of the same commanders who had talked about Islam and its importance to Muslims and Afghans only a few months before.

  My father wanted to leave Afghanistan for Turkey or Russia, where he had many friends from his days as a boxer, but my grandfather would not give him permission to go. “The borders are still open,” my father said. “We should go while we can. We will come back when things quiet down.”

  “Afghanistan is in good hands now. We are with our own now, and we can decide what we want. Give them time,” Grandfather urged. Besides, he needed my father’s help. My father was the son on whom my grandfather most depended.

  * * *

  Slowly, one Mujahedin faction took over a part of Kabul City, and another faction took another part. They started by seizing control of a neighborhood where many people of their tribe lived, then tried to take other areas around them. Soon, each faction had its own territory. As spring turned into summer, we started hearing about “checkpoints” and the “front lines.” The factions started firing rockets at each other. Now innocent people were being killed, especially in our neighborhood, which by sad chance was about as far as the rockets from each side could fly before they fell.

  First it was a dozen people who were killed. Then it was a hundred. Then a thousand. It was like when a forest catches fire, both the dry and the wet burn.

  One faction overran Pul-e-Charkhi prison and freed not just the political prisoners, but even those who had committed inhumane deeds against common ordinary people.

  * * *

  One day while two factions were firing rockets at each other over our heads, there was loud knocking on our courtyard door. I had just come out of Grandfather’s room, where he was starting his prayers, and I ran to the door.

  When I opened it, I saw some guys with guns, grenades, and bullets tucked into special belts and in their waistcoat pockets. The hooks of the grenades were hanging out.

  One of them walked through the door without being invited and pushed me against the wall. He had an ugly scar on his face. Two others followed.

  “Where is
the owner of this house?” he asked loudly.

  “He is inside praying,” I told him.

  “Where?” he asked gruffly. I pointed to Grandfather’s room. He kicked open the door. Grandfather was on his prayer rug, with his head touching the ground.

  “Give me the key to your carpet warehouse!” the man with the scar shouted at Grandfather, but Grandfather ignored him, and kept on praying. The man shouted again and pointed his gun at Grandfather’s head. I started to cry.

  My grandfather ignored him until he had finished his prayers. He quietly rose to his feet and folded his prayer rug as if he were the only person in the room. Finally, he looked at the gunman, who had been shouting the whole time.

  “If you think I will be scared by your loud voice, you are stupid.” Grandfather spoke calmly, like he was talking to one of his clients at the bank.

  The shouting had attracted the attention of my father and my uncles. I could hear them running toward Grandfather’s room. They were shouting, too, asking what was happening. The thieves took positions in the corners of the room. As my father and his brothers came rushing in, the thieves put their guns to the backs of their necks. Everyone froze where he stood.

  My cousins had come running down the long corridor that led to my grandfather’s room, their mothers behind them. When they saw the thieves and the guns, there was a moment of horrified silence.

  Then Grandfather spoke softly. “Go ahead, kill me, and then you will get the key. Whatever I have earned in life came from the calluses of my hands. I will not give it to a bunch of cowardly thieves.”

  The one in charge, with the scar, grinned at my grandfather and said, “You stupid old man, I won’t even waste a bullet on you.” Then he shouted at my uncles, cousins, and their mothers to move back. Everyone did. The thieves braced the butts of their Kalashnikovs against their stomachs, pointed the barrels toward us, and walked backward out the courtyard gate.