Parvana's Journey

by Deborah Ellis

  Sometimes I put my hand behind me on my back and try to remember how far down my hair grew. I think I know, but I could be wrong.

  It’s hard to remember that I used to sleep in a bed and had to do my homework before I could watch television and play with my friends. It’s hard to remember that we used to have ice cream and cakes to eat. Was that really me? Did I really leave a big piece of cake on my plate one day because I didn’t feel like eating it? That must have been a dream. That couldn’t have been my life.

  My life is dust and rocks and rude boys and skinny babies, and long days of searching for my mother when I don’t have the faintest idea where she might be.

  SIX

  Parvana swept out the little cave using her sandal as a broom. She liked the dirt floor to be smooth, even though it never stayed that way for long.

  “We could fix it up,” she said to herself. She would have said it to Hassan, but Hassan was with Asif down by the stream. Even though she was alone, she spoke out loud. She liked the way her quiet words bounced around in the little cave.

  “We could put some shelves up in this corner,” she said, running her fingers on some jagged bits of rock that could hold boards, if she could find any wood. “Maryam and I could sleep at the front, and Mother and Ali could sleep in the back so that Ali couldn’t get out without crawling over us.”

  What about Nooria? Parvana frowned as she measured the little space with her eyes. Then she shrugged. Nooria could sleep outside.

  Satisfied for the moment with the cave floor, Parvana put her sandal back on before joining the others at the stream.

  “What were you doing?” Asif asked. He was twisting grass together, trying to make a little boat. Hassan was watching him.

  “I was cleaning out the cave.”

  “Why? It’s just a cave. It’s stupid to clean it.”

  “You think you are so right all the time,” Parvana said, folding her arms across her chest. “There’s a lot you don’t know. Maybe it’s not just a cave. Maybe it’s a treasure cave.”

  “What are you babbling about? Hassan makes more sense than you do. There’s no such thing as a treasure cave.”

  “There is,” Parvana insisted, her voice rising. “In fact, it’s exactly the sort of cave Alexander the Great would have used to hide his treasure in.” She waited for Asif to ask her who Alexander the Great was so she could show off how much she knew, but he just kept working on his boat.

  She tapped her foot several times and then told him.

  “Alexander the Great was an army general who lived a long time ago. He took treasures from every place he conquered.”

  “You mean he was a thief. He should have had his hands cut off.”

  “He wasn’t a thief,” Parvana insisted, although even as she was talking, she wondered if that were true. “People loved him. They gave him their treasures.”

  “You mean he’d ride through a town and people loved him so much they just gave him their things?”

  “They did,” she insisted.

  “Then they were all stupid,” Asif declared. “If I had treasure, I wouldn’t give any of it away.” He finished twisting the grass and put the little boat in the stream. The children watched it float away with the current.

  “Why would he bury his treasure anyway?” Asif asked. “Why wouldn’t he keep it with him?”

  “Probably there was too much to carry,” Parvana said. “He had so much treasure his horses were weighed down with it, and he had to bury some or their backs would break.”

  “So why didn’t he come back for it?”

  “Maybe he forgot which cave it was in. Maybe he had so much treasure that he didn’t even need to think about it once he buried it. How should I know?” Parvana’s mind flashed briefly on the memory of her father’s books, stuck in a hole in the ground, covered up with dirt. How would she ever find them again? She chased the question from her head. It was making her sad, and she didn’t want to be sad when she was busy being annoyed at Asif.

  “You think there’s treasure in that dirty old cave?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Parvana said. Why wouldn’t there be? The more she thought about it, the more she was certain that a box of gold coins and big jewels lay under the ground in the cave, just waiting for her to dig up.

  “If there’s any treasure there, it belongs to me,” Asif insisted. “I found the cave first.”

  Parvana sputtered with anger. “You’re wearing my clothes, eating my food, and that’s how you say thank you? You really are a terrible boy.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll share it with you.”

  “You certainly will.”

  Asif pulled himself up with his crutches. He only got halfway up, when he started to fall back. Parvana put her hands under his arms and gave him a boost.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  “Where?”

  “To the cave. To start digging.” He shook his head with disgust. “What did you think I was talking about? Better find something to dig with.” He hobbled off.

  The treasure was by now so real in Parvana’s imagination that she barely minded being ordered around. She found a couple of good-sized rocks with points at the ends, picked up Hassan and joined Asif in the cave.

  The floor soon lost its smoothness as Parvana and Asif scraped away at it with their rocks. Sometimes one of their rocks hit a clunk, and they got very excited until they realized they had only hit another rock.

  “What will you do with your share of the treasure?” she asked Asif.

  “Horses,” he answered. “I’ll buy lots of horses, fast ones. I’ll ride and ride, and when the horse I’m riding gets tired, I’ll buy another one, then another, then another. I’ll never have to stop moving.”

  “What about food?”

  “What will I need food for? I’ll be riding, not walking.”

  “I’ll buy a big house,” Parvana said. “A magic house where bombs just slip off the roof without exploding. It will be a white stone house just like the one I used to live in, only bigger, with a separate house in the yard for my sister Nooria, so I wouldn’t have to see her all the time. And I’ll wear beautiful clothes and lots of jewels, and I’ll have lots of servants so I’ll never have to do housework again.” She could see herself in her mind, dressed up in a glowing red shalwar kameez like the one her aunt made her that she had to sell, long ago in Kabul, so that her family could buy food to eat.

  “All the jewels in the world wouldn’t make you look pretty,” Asif said. “What good are jewels, anyway? You can’t eat them or burn them to keep you warm at night, or — ”

  Parvana’s rock suddenly clunked against a hard surface.

  “I think I’ve found something.”

  “It’s just another rock.”

  She scraped away some more dirt. “No, I don’t think so.” She dug in harder. “I think it’s a box!”

  Asif dug his rock in close to hers. “It is! It is a box!”

  They dug faster and faster, dirt flying up and around the cave.

  “Watch out for Hassan. He’s right behind you,” Parvana managed to say while she was huffing and puffing with exertion. Asif adjusted his digging so the dirt wouldn’t fly near the baby.

  Bit by bit, the box emerged. Parvana got up onto her knees to pull it out, and Asif leaned in to help. With a giant grunt, they pulled the box out of the ground. It was made of green metal, twice as long as Parvana’s sandal and one sandal width wide.

  “It’s smaller than I thought a treasure box would be,” Asif said.

  “Diamonds don’t have to be big,” Parvana replied. “Let’s take it out in the sun so that the jewels will really sparkle when we open it.” She dragged the box out of the cave into the sunshine. While Asif scooted out on his bottom, she went back for Hassan, so he could be there for the treasure-box opening, too.


  Asif pounded on the dirt-encrusted lock with a rock until it broke apart.

  “It’s rusty,” he said.

  “It’s been under the ground for thousands of years,” Parvana said. “You’d be rusty, too.”

  Asif pulled the broken pieces of padlock away from the clasp.

  “Ready?”

  “Ready.” She put her hands near his, and they opened the box together.

  It was full of bullets.

  The children looked down and stared, too shocked to speak. Hassan gurgled and reached out to touch the shiny little objects.

  Asif slammed the box shut.

  “Some treasure,” he yelled. “Why do I listen to you?” He pulled himself up on his crutches, yanking away from Parvana’s offer of help. He knocked her with his shoulder as he hobbled away from the cave.

  Parvana opened the box again. Maybe her eyes had played tricks on her.

  But they hadn’t. All she saw were rows of tightly packed bullets, and when she ran her hands through them, no jewels winked out at her. Only bullets.

  They weren’t buried by Alexander the Great. Bullets hadn’t been invented back then. They were probably buried by the men who had fought in the war that had started long before she was born. Maybe the man who buried them had died. Maybe he forgot which cave they were in. Maybe he had so many bullets he didn’t need these.

  It didn’t matter. There was no treasure.

  With great effort, Parvana lifted the box over her head and threw it as far away as she could. It landed with a thud, the bullets spilling out over the ground. They looked like seeds on the earth, but Parvana knew they would not turn into food.

  She picked up Hassan and sat with him, looking away from the cave. She turned Hassan so that he couldn’t see her face. She was ashamed of herself for getting caught up in a stupid dream, as though she were still a child.

  SEVEN

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” Parvana told Asif the next morning. They had all slept outside. Parvana didn’t feel like smoothing down the floor of the cave again. She didn’t feel like being reminded of her foolishness.

  “Where are you going?” Asif asked.

  “To look for my mother.”

  “But where are you going to look?”

  Parvana gazed around and picked a direction. “Over that way.”

  “Why that way?”

  “Because it’s part of my plan.”

  “You have a plan?”

  “Of course I have a plan.” Parvana’s only plan was to keep walking in the hopes of bumping into her mother somewhere. “But I see no reason to tell you what it is.”

  “I don’t want to know anyway,” Asif said. “It’s probably a stupid plan.”

  It will be wonderful to leave you behind, Parvana thought. How lovely and quiet my days and nights will be.

  “I suppose you think I’m going to come with you,” Asif said.

  Parvana pretended she didn’t hear him.

  “I suppose you think I’d be grateful to go with you,” Asif continued. “I suppose you think I can’t look after myself out here.”

  Parvana kept quiet, feeling very superior for having the patience to not answer back.

  She decided to wash all the clothes so everything would be clean when she started walking again.

  Asif kicked at the ground with his one leg. “I suppose you’ll take the baby.”

  “You want me to leave him with you?”

  “I don’t care.”

  Parvana picked up Hassan and the soiled diapers and carried them down to the stream. She was still scrubbing the first diaper when she heard Asif’s crutches coming up behind her.

  “You’ll probably walk right by your mother,” he said. “You’ll be walking in one direction, and she’ll be walking in another, and you’ll pass right by each other and keep on walking forever and ever until you both run out of ground to walk on,” Asif said. “It makes more sense for you to stay here. Your mother will probably walk by here any day looking for you. In fact, I think she’ll come soon, and she’ll be very angry when I tell her you couldn’t wait around for her.”

  “What makes you think my mother will be here soon?” Parvana asked. Could he be right? She felt a flicker of hope.

  “Just a feeling,” Asif replied. “Do you want to take that chance?”

  He doesn’t know anything, she realized. He’s just talking. She felt disappointed but not surprised.

  She washed the rest of the diapers and spread them out to dry. “I wish you could wash out your own diapers,” she said to Hassan.

  Hassan reached for a shiny stone, ignoring Parvana’s complaints.

  “It would probably really annoy you if I came with you, wouldn’t it?” Asif said. “You’d probably hate it. You’re probably wishing and wishing that I’ll stay behind.”

  Parvana smoothed the wrinkles out of one of the washed diapers. She didn’t say anything.

  “In that case,” Asif said, “I’ll come. Just to annoy you.”

  Parvana felt a strange, surprising relief. She had known, deep inside, that she wouldn’t have been able to leave him behind.

  “Please don’t,” she said.

  “Forget it,” he said. “My mind is made up. And don’t try to sneak away without me, because I’ll catch you, and you’ll be sorry.”

  The idea of Asif catching up with anything faster than a worm almost made her smile, but she caught herself in time. She got her shoulder bag and sat down to write to her friend.

  Dear Shauzia:

  We’re moving away from here tomorrow. I like staying in one place, but each time I do, it gets harder to leave. After all the moving around that I’ve done, I should be used to it. But I’m not.

  We have to leave, though. We’re running out of food. We’re down to four scoops of rice and a bit of oil.

  I don’t know if there will be food where we’re going, but I do know there won’t be any more here.

  Maybe we’ll find a really wonderful place with lots of food, and grownups who can look after Hassan, and a room I can sleep in that’s far away from everyone who bothers me.

  Was I always this grumpy?

  I hope there’s lots of food where you are. I wish you could send us some.

  Until next time,

  Your friend,

  Parvana

  The next morning, Parvana washed out the diapers Hassan had dirtied again and wrapped them in a cloth. She would spread them out to dry when they stopped for a rest.

  She started to bundle up the food.

  “What if there’s no water where we’re going?” Asif asked. “How will you cook the rice? You didn’t think of that, did you?”

  She hadn’t, although she hated to admit it. She took the cook-pot out of the bundle.

  “I guess I should cook it all up now,” she said. “I don’t like to do that. I don’t know how long it will last without growing moldy if it’s cooked.”

  “We’ll eat it before it gets moldy,” Asif said. “There’s not that much left.”

  Parvana knew he was right. Four little cups of rice would not last long with two children and one baby eating it. She gathered some grasses and dried weeds. Asif broke them into the right size, struck a match, and soon had a fire going. Parvana fetched water, and they cooked the rice.

  “We could eat some while it’s hot, couldn’t we?” Asif asked.

  Parvana thought that would be a good idea. “We’ll only eat a little bit,” she said. “It’s got to last until we find more food.”

  They ate the hot rice right out of the pot. Hassan sat on Asif’s lap, and Asif fed him, too.

  It seemed like they had just started eating when Parvana noticed the pot was only half filled with rice.

  “Stop eating!” she cried, snatching the pot away from Asif’s hands. “This
has got to last!”

  “Why did you eat so much, then?”

  “Don’t blame me! You’re the one who kept shoveling it in, as if we were rich people with bags of rice all over the place.” Parvana flung her arm so violently in anger that the pot of rice slipped out of her fingers and flew off into the dirt.

  It landed bottom up.

  Neither child spoke. They stared at the up-turned pot.

  After a long, terrible moment, Parvana walked over to the pot and carefully lifted it up. Most of the rice was still stuck to the bottom. She must have cooked it too long.

  There was still some rice on the ground. Asif shuffled over on his behind, and together they picked up the rice, grain by grain, and put it back in the pot.

  When everything was packed up, Parvana took out her notebook.

  Dear Shauzia:

  I hate it when I make things worse. Why do I behave so badly? Why can’t I be nice?

  She helped Asif stand up, picked up the bundles and the baby, and the children walked away from the cave. They didn’t look back.

  EIGHT

  They walked for two days before the food ran out, and then they walked for two days more.

  Parvana’s belly had that ache it got when she didn’t feed it. It was a mixture of pain and emptiness. Her head felt empty, too, and she felt dull and stupid.

  Hassan wailed the first day after the rice was gone, but by the second day the wail had dwindled to a thin whine, like the sound he had been making when Parvana first found him.

  “Hassan needs to rest,” Asif said. Parvana suspected it was Asif who needed to rest, but he would never admit that. He moved more and more slowly, and his face had the same expression her father’s face had when he was in pain.

  Parvana put Hassan on the ground, then her bundles. She held onto Asif’s arm as he sat down. When he was tired, he often slipped and rolled onto his side when he was trying to sit. This embarrassed him and made him grumpy.

  “Is there any water left?” Asif asked.