“It must be so,” Rahima declared through her tears. “My own Parween, a true shaheed.”
By the time they left to take Parween to her resting place, a crowd had gathered in the compound, and even more mourners lined the road beyond. The group grew until it seemed the whole village was there, and they fell into line and marched to the burial site just beyond the gate. Elsa and Rahima walked together, each holding one of Parween’s children. Zahra wriggled herself from Elsa’s grip and resolutely toddled beside the donkey cart that carried her mother’s shrouded body.
A low hum followed the procession as people swapped their own accounts of Parween’s adventures. With every step, her legend was swelling, and with each retelling of her exploits and the manner of her death, she became more and more important in the lives of those who had known her—and even those who hadn’t.
The shriveled old woman from the stream, whose son had seen the lady rebel, declared that it had to have been Parween, and she marveled at the fact that Parween had kept silent when they’d talked of her that day at the stream.
Elsa shared how Parween had rescued her from the surly young Taliban by yelling at them and spitting in their direction. She had been a fierce warrior.
The gathering stopped at the burial site, and Elsa stepped forward to bid her dear friend a final Khoda hafez. Hussein lifted the coffin from the cart, and Elsa leaned over it and whispered.
“Man shumura dost doram. I love you, my dear friend.”
When the coffin had been lowered into the ground and the prayers finished, Rahima reached for Elsa’s hand.
“Come,” she said, “it is time to go.”
Elsa could only shake her head. “Not yet. I’ll be along later.” Her voice cracked, and she fell to the ground and buried her face in her hands. She lingered there after the mourners had left, and she curled up on the ground to be close to her friend one last time.
She lay there alone for a long time, and as the sun sank, she placed a gleaming tube of lipstick among the stones that marked Parween’s resting place.
34
It didn’t take long for word of the trouble—and Elsa’s role in it—to trickle back to Kabul, and from there to Paris. So she wasn’t surprised when the French administrator arrived in Bamiyan two days after the shoot-out.
“What were you thinking?” the Frenchman spat out. “We never collaborate with the invaders.”
Elsa sat silently as she waited for him to finish his angry harangue.
“As soon as we find a replacement, you must leave,” he announced. “You have compromised our clinic and our organization.”
After a long pause, Elsa responded. “I am truly sorry. I only wanted to help, but it all went terribly wrong.”
He held his hand up as if to stop her words. “You went terribly wrong,” he said.
A sudden burst of anger washed over Elsa. “The villagers and staff will tell you that I have helped, but I’m not going to argue with you.” She was surprised at her own boldness. It seemed only yesterday she’d been a timid new aid worker and yet here she was, shrugging off the French administrator’s surly comments. She didn’t care what he thought, and eventually she just stopped listening to him, though she sat politely.
He folded his arms across his chest. “Of course, we accept some responsibility,” he said finally. “We should not have left you alone here, and it is true that you performed admirably. But still, we must replace you. You understand? We will replace you as soon as possible.”
That same day, she spoke with the Chief, and he told her that Mike had done well enough in Germany that he was being transferred to Washington, D.C. “And you, Elsa, you have to leave. I’ve assigned soldiers to watch over you, but I can’t guarantee your safety.”
She’d seen them, always in the background watching, weapons at the ready. “I know,” she said. “I’m making my arrangements.”
“I can put you on a helicopter,” he said. “Get you out today.”
“Not yet,” she said.
The Chief sighed but nodded. Then he blushed as he gave her the message that Mike had insisted he pass along.
“Mike says to tell you that he loves you and that he expects you to come home soon.” The Chief leaned in and planted a soft kiss on Elsa’s cheek. “He asked me to give you that, too, and I hate to deny my men what they ask.” Despite his obvious embarrassment, he grinned.
It was all Elsa could do to hold back the tears.
“Oh, Chief, tell him that I love him too.” Finally, she lost the battle, and her tears began to fall.
The Chief wrapped Elsa in his big, burly arms and held her.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to give him that message yourself, young lady.”
She fished in her pocket and passed him a roll of film.
“For Dave’s wife,” she said. “His pictures are in there.”
The Chief took the film and blinked away the tears that lined his eyes.
Hamid left Bamiyan. Considering everything that had happened, he’d decided to take Mike’s advice and return to Kabul, where he planned to enroll at the university.
With tears in his eyes, he took Elsa’s hands in his. “You are my one true sister—” His voice broke. “I will never forget you. Inshallah, we will meet again in a safer place.” He released Elsa’s hands and wiped his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “Tashakore, my sister, tashakore.”
Elsa felt her own eyes well up. “Hamid, you are my true brother. I don’t know how I could have survived without you.” A sob caught in her throat and she paused. “We will be connected forever, and I know that we will meet again.”
Before their last good-bye, she asked him to write out one final translation.
“For Rahima,” she said.
The following day, Elsa received word that a replacement had been located and she should be on her way as soon as she could arrange a UN flight. She spoke with Johann, who had been devastated by the turn of events in Sattar. Each time he saw her, he said the same thing.
“Oh, Elsa, whyever did you go? I wanted you to wait. I wanted you to wait.” And he dropped his head into his hands.
Elsa rested her hand on his shoulder.
“I wish we’d listened. We shouldn’t have gone. But Parween wanted to prove to you that she was serious, someone who would be a good teacher. You asked us to wait, and we should have. I am so sorry.”
“Ahh,” he said softly. “I should have insisted. I’m afraid I wasn’t firm enough.”
“Oh, Johann, it’s not your fault. Parween was determined to go and I was determined to help her.” She closed her eyes, remembering Parween’s contagious smile, but today it brought only tears.
Johann reached out and covered Elsa’s hand with his own.
When they’d both recovered their composure, Elsa asked about the next UN flight to Kabul.
“Why, my dear, there will be another flight in just two days. I wish for once that there would be a delay, so that we might keep you with us just a little longer.”
Elsa smiled and thanked him for his help. He walked her to the gate and spoke again.
“Bamiyan will miss you, Elsa. If you are ever in need of work, I hope that you will consider joining us at the UN.” He passed her his business card. “So you can reach me.”
Elsa ran her fingers over the embossed lettering. “The last time I took someone’s card,” she said, slipping the card into her pocket, “it changed my life.”
She kissed him on both cheeks, turned, and strode back to her own compound.
Her final days were lost in a blur of writing reports, tying up loose ends, and saying good-byes. That was the hardest part—the goodbyes. There were Amina and Sidiq, who would soon be parents and who would stay in the little house with her until she flew to Kabul. There was Soraya, and then Laila and Ezat, the clinic staff, and the neighborhood children.
And there was Rahima, the most important good-bye of all.
She dreaded that final good-bye, but she had to do it
. Each farewell was more painful than the one before, and she saved Rahima for last.
She approached Uncle Abdullah’s compound and knocked softly at the gate. Hussein answered and ushered her into Parween’s room. Rahima, crouched there on the floor and surrounded by Parween’s sleeping babies, rose from her sewing.
She took Elsa into her arms. They hugged and cried, and Elsa promised to return.
“It’s what Parween would have wanted. I will come back here someday, and if ever you or the babies need anything—anything—please let me know.” She carefully explained how they could contact her and left a piece of paper with the instructions Hamid had translated before he left. Elsa’s eyes filled with tears again as she reached into her pocket and withdrew a shiny tube of lipstick, the last of the tubes she’d packed so long ago.
“For Zahra,” she said as she folded the tube into Rahima’s hand. “Parween would want her to have a lipstick of her very own.”
Rahima cradled the little tube and smiled. She turned then and gathered Parween’s new brown veil and passed it to Elsa. “So you will have a piece of Parween,” she said, tears collecting in her eyes.
Elsa’s shoulders heaved with the cry that escaped her and she held the veil to her face.
“Tashakore, Rahima,” she cried, folding Rahima into her arms.
They hugged one last time, and Elsa, clutching Parween’s veil, reluctantly left the small compound she’d come to know so well. She stood outside for a final look around. Her heart was filled with memories of this place, these people, and how they’d changed her life.
She made the short journey from Parween’s house to her own with tears falling from her eyes.
She arrived home to find that Amina and Sidiq had arranged a surprise farewell dinner. The hospital staff and neighbor children all crowded in and they sat, alternately laughing and crying as they shared memories of Elsa’s stay in Bamiyan.
“She chased the jinn from my mind,” Sidiq proudly proclaimed. “And she found me a wife.” He smiled broadly at Amina, who gazed demurely at her husband.
“I think you would have found each other no matter what,” Elsa said, trying to steer the conversation to her guests. “But I am glad to have attended your beautiful wedding.”
Amina took her hand. “You will marry soon, yes?”
The children all giggled. Surely, now Elsa could find a husband. She felt a half smile spread across her face.
“Mumkin, maybe,” she said.
When the evening was almost over, Ezat and Laila arrived to say good-bye.
Laila sniffled frequently.
“Please come back, dear friend,” she said.
“Inshallah, Laila, inshallah.” Elsa blinked back her own tears.
“Yes, please come back,” Ezat said slowly in perfect though halting English. “We will miss you here in Bamiyan.”
Elsa’s tears broke through, and she buried her face in her hands.
The guests trickled out one by one, leaving Elsa with Sidiq and Amina, who had finally begun to glow with her pregnancy.
Amina took Elsa’s hands.
“If a girl, the name of my baby will be Parween.”
Elsa kissed Amina and wrapped her in a warm embrace.
“Tashakore, my friend, tashakore.”
Elsa stayed up to pack, and when dawn came, she was ready for the journey home.
35
The next morning, Elsa shared a tearful good-bye with Amina and Sidiq, and then left on the first leg of her trip.
When she left her compound, she was surrounded by the children who had befriended her from the start, and she realized that they really didn’t understand a good-bye like this.
Then she picked up her bag and walked alone to the little landing strip to wait for her UN flight. She stood in the dirt under a blazing sun and squinted into the horizon, hoping for a glimpse of the plane. A turbaned official stood nearby, but because she was a woman, he did not acknowledge her.
Finally, the plane appeared, slipping through the mountaintops and flying in low to land. Just then, an errant cow wandered onto the runway and the small plane was forced back into the sky. Villagers ran to the cow and coaxed him back off the dirt landing strip. Several minutes later, the plane finally landed, and the irate pilot jumped out to scream at the villagers about the cow.
Elsa stood on the edge of the field, waiting to board the tiny plane.
From a distance, Elsa heard the unmistakable sound of familiar voices calling her name. She turned; five of the neighborhood boys and girls were running to her for a last good-bye. Tears streamed down her face as she met them and tried to hold them all in her outstretched arms. They chattered all at once, a mixture of Dari and English.
“Will you miss me?”
“Don’t go.”
“Will you marry now?”
“Take me with you!”
“Promise you’ll be back.”
“I love you!”
Finally, in a haze of sadness, Elsa pulled herself away and boarded the plane. As it lifted above Afghanistan’s mountains, she looked down to see, for one last time, the children running after her, waving and crying.
She held them tight in her vision until the plane lifted into the mountains and the children’s tiny forms disappeared from view.
epilogue
Elsa’s footfalls were silent as she slipped into Mike’s hospital room. The sight of him lying quietly under crisp white sheets, surrounded by humming monitors and pumps, made her heart soar. He was alive. It would take some time, the doctors had said, but he was going to be fine.
She sat on the side of his bed and held his hand, stroking it gently before she leaned in and kissed him full on the lips. He opened his eyes and smiled drowsily before drifting back into sleep.
Elsa lifted herself onto his bed and curled herself around him, feeling the gentle rhythm of his breathing against her chest. “I love you, Mike,” she whispered. He stirred for a moment and Elsa pulled him closer. She hadn’t known until this moment how blissful holding him again would be. She pulled him closer still, melting into him.
This time, she’d never let him go.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Since the horrific events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent invasion, life in Afghanistan has certainly improved on some levels. There is better access to health care for everyone, including women, although there is still a long way to go. The UN has reported that an Afghan woman dies of complications from childbirth or pregnancy every twenty minutes, and one of every four babies born will not live to see his fifth birthday.
Tragedy and danger still linger. Land mines continue to threaten the lives of women and children on a daily basis. Latest estimates indicate that between one hundred fifty and three hundred people are killed or injured by land mines every month in Afghanistan. Many of them are children.
There are, however, hopeful signs. According to UNICEF, an estimated 5.4 million children now attend some form of school, most at the primary level; and the long drought has finally ended. Though wracked by poverty, misery, and war, Afghanistan is populated by some of the kindest, gentlest people imaginable. Despite decades of turbulence, its citizens remain unfailingly caring and polite.
In 2002, I spent six months providing health care to the villagers in Bamiyan and beyond as a nurse and humanitarian aid worker. There, I worked with the Hazaras, a long-reviled ethnic tribe in central Afghanistan.
The Hazaras were especially despised by the Taliban, and consequently, they were subjected to relentless punishment intended to break their proud spirit. But instead, the ruthless punishment empowered them, and they emerged as some of Afghanistan’s most graceful and generous people. As if to emphasize their independence, in 2005, a woman was appointed provincial governor of Bamiyan Province.
Despite the recent progress and their own determination, there are worrisome signs as well. By all accounts, the Taliban have regrouped, and in 2009, the BBC reported that they have encircled Bamiyan.
It is that lady rebel who is the true inspiration for this story, and for the people of Bamiyan, because despite its persistent miseries, Afghanistan is a place where even in the darkest hours, hope lives.
For information on how to help the people of Afghanistan or some of the more than 42 million refugees and displaced around the world, please visit the International Rescue Committee at www.theirc.org.
READERS GROUP GUIDE
Lipstick in Afghanistan
Roberta Gately
Elsa Murphy is a serious, sweet Boston girl whose tough childhood made her want nothing more than to truly help people. After working tirelessly to finish nursing school and sweating through long hours in the ER, she decides to volunteer with Aide du Monde, a world relief organization. Elsa feels it’s the best way to put her nursing skills to use, and she secretly longs to leave Boston and add some color to her life. But she has no idea what to expect when she is posted to a rural clinic in Afghanistan, just after 9/11.
From the moment she sets foot in Bamiyan, Elsa knows her life will forever be changed by what she sees and who she befriends. There’s spirited Parween, a young mother who’s been forced to silently accept the horrors the Taliban inflicted on her family and friends, but who longs to throw off her veil and fight back. And there’s Mike, a handsome engineer in the U.S. Special Forces who teaches Elsa what it truly means to love. But when an innocent venture to a nearby town puts them in grave danger from a Taliban guerrilla unit, Elsa and her friends must fight for their lives—and Elsa discovers the real power that comes from friendship, and the strength she never knew she had.
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