Dear Zari: Hidden Stories from Women of Afghanistan

by Zarghuna Kargar

  Even now whenever Nasreen mentioned Abdullah’s name, I could hear an intense desire in her voice and sensed that she still desperately missed him.

  I remained happy because I was certain Abdullah’s mother still wanted me to marry her son. I was just waiting for the day when she would come to our rooms and ask for my hand. Then one afternoon, the weather was perfect, it was warm but with a fresh breeze, the sky was clear blue and the birds were singing. It was a perfect day.

  I asked Nasreen if she had met Abdullah under the tree that day, but she said she hadn’t. Instead it was the day Abdullah’s mother had come to her mother and asked for Nasreen’s hand in marriage to Abdullah.

  My mother wasn’t blind. She already knew I had feelings for him, but used to try to stop me from going to his family’s rooms and talking to his mother and sisters during the day.

  ‘Listen, my girl, I know you’re still young but you’re also a woman now so be careful not to look at Abdullah. It’s forbidden for you to do anything like that. Do you understand me?’ One day I had confessed that I liked him, and demanded to know what was wrong with feeling that way. In return, she had slapped me hard and told me I was a shameless woman, asking how I could speak like that and saying that women are not allowed to have those kinds of feelings. She then forbade me to see him again. He was a boy, she told me, so he could do whatever he liked and no one would ever gossip about him, but it was different for me because I was a girl and our family could be shamed for ever because of me.

  That day I wept and longed to see Abdullah, but knew it would be impossible because my mother was afraid of my father. She had told me that if my father got to hear about my feelings for Abdullah, then the shame would force him to resolve the matter by killing me.

  I wasn’t surprised when Nasreen told me this because I know of several cases where girls have in fact been killed for loving a man that their family didn’t approve of. Gossip can sometimes get out of control, becoming completely exaggerated, but some men in the family find this hard to understand and feel compelled to defend the family honour nonetheless and prove that they disapprove of shameful behaviour by killing an innocent girl. There have been some instances in which the boy has been killed for having a forbidden love affair, but it’s usually the case that the woman ends up being blamed and punished.

  Soon Abdullah’s mother began asking my mother for my hand on behalf of her son, and I started to get scared because she was becoming insistent. But my mother actually became quite comfortable with the situation because this is the way marriages in Afghanistan are normally arranged. The boy’s family comes to the girl’s family, they pay their respects and then ask for the daughter’s hand in marriage. My mother had a kind heart and she knew that I loved Abdullah, so she was pleased that his family had begun to pay their respects to us in this way. She mentioned as much to my father when he came home from work one evening, but he didn’t like what he heard one bit, and when my mother tried to persuade him that they were a respectable family and that their son and his daughter already knew each other he flew into a rage. ‘Just how well does our daughter know this bastard?’ My mother’s voice shook as she told him that although I had obviously seen Abdullah around the house, I’d not actually had any kind of contact with him. But my father was not to be fooled quite so easily.

  ‘Don’t you realise, woman, that we are Pashtuns and they are Tajiks. We don’t belong together at all, so just forget all about this.’

  My mother protested saying she thought marriage would make me – their daughter – happy and that my happiness should count for something.

  ‘Well, it might be the most important thing for you, but people will say that my daughter married the neighbour and probably had an affair with him beforehand. This is what people will say, you silly woman!’

  The more my mother insisted, the more angry my father became until finally he slapped her. When I heard the commotion I rushed into the room and clung to my mother who was weeping. I was furious with my father for upsetting her so much when she was only defending me.

  The days passed and my love for Abdullah grew. After a week or so, the men in his family came to see my parents and asked for my hand. My father wouldn’t talk to them, but nor would he refuse outright to give them what they wanted. Instead, he called on my uncle to join him in the negotiation process, and together they decided to ask for such an unfeasibly large sum of money in return for my hand that Abdullah’s family would never be able to afford it. My father and uncle couldn’t bear the idea that their daughter, and niece, had decided to love a boy of her own choosing. According to my family I had committed a terrible crime. As Abdullah’s family wasn’t rich, they asked for some time to consider this. But a few days later they returned and said they were prepared to pay the price my father and uncle had set, because their son’s happiness was more important to them than money.

  Nasreen cried throughout telling me her story, and whenever she spoke of her love for Abdullah I could feel her pain. She told me how lucky Abdullah was that his family respected his love for her enough to be prepared to pay a lot of money to see him happy.

  But no one in my family really cared about me or my feelings. I was on my own, and even my mother was unable to help me. Instead she found herself being blamed for bringing up a daughter who had brought shame on the family: a daughter who had dared to love the man of her choice. Meanwhile, my father continued to make excuses for the fact that he’d refused to allow me to marry Abdullah. If he had let me marry Abdullah it would have meant that he’d accepted our love for one another, but he just wasn’t enough of a man to do this. He kept using the excuse that Abdullah was not a Pashtun like us, and in the end I just couldn’t bear it any more and demanded to know why he was behaving so unreasonably. My father almost had a fit when he heard his fourteen-year-old daughter challenge him in this way, and began beating me, calling me a prostitute and berating me for daring to love ‘that boy’. He hit me so hard I had bruises all over my face and my lips were bleeding. My body ached from the blows.

  ‘You, you are a girl and in our culture girls are not allowed to question their father’s authority. Now I am going to make you suffer.’

  Abdullah’s parents must have been able to hear my screams from next door as I was beaten like an animal. My mother wept and pleaded with my father not to hurt me, but father shouted back that it was all her fault. I was her daughter and she had spoilt me.

  In between sobs, Nasreen told me that in our culture fathers are credited with a child’s good behaviour, but if the child does something he doesn’t approve of then the mother will shoulder the blame and also be punished. I tried to hold back my tears as Nasreen continued with her story. I was hoping for a bit of Bollywood magic and a happy ending in which Abdullah would whisk Nasreen away to a place where they could be together for ever, far away from those who would judge or criticise them. Nasreen told me how much pain she endured that day and how there had been bruises and scars all over her body. She had even heard Abdullah and his mother crying through the wall.

  The next day my father told me we were going to move to another house. I didn’t realise this idea had already been discussed with my uncle and that behind my back they had made plans for my new life. The next day, my parents began packing up our house and Abdullah and his family watched and wept at my father’s cruelty. To be honest with you, Zarghuna Jan, I will never forgive my father for what he did to me. I don’t care what happens to him and don’t even know where he is now. Yes, we did move to another house, but it was only later I realised they’d done this to separate me from Abdullah. I was naïve. I now know my uncle had advised my parents that they should move unobtrusively so that the neighbours wouldn’t know what was happening. Once we’d moved, he said, a decision could then be made about my future.

  My father had agreed to this move while my mother had no say whatsoever in the matter. She had given up by this point and no longer told me what was going on. I didn’t blame her, tho
ugh, because she was in a vulnerable position too. The place we eventually moved to was a long way away from Abdullah. I missed him terribly and every day I’d take out one of his bangles from its box and look at it, admiring the coloured glass in the light: red, green, blue, yellow. Each bangle carried the memory of him and I cherished each one as a precious token of his love.

  A few days after arriving at our new home, I noticed that people kept visiting our house, but I was too miserable at being away from Abdullah and too preoccupied with praying he would come and rescue me to pay much attention. I thought my father’s anger with me had subsided and was even hoping he would change his mind and let me marry Abdullah, but this was all just wishful thinking. I had failed to understand my father fully. In his eyes, I had committed a crime by falling in love and he was planning to punish me for it. I should have guessed what was coming because my father had never really spoken to me in the kind way that fathers normally do to their children. He was always angry with me and treated me badly. I don’t understand why God allows men who don’t care about women and girls to have families. I don’t think my father even loved his own mother. He was always cruel to women.

  I did eventually ask my mother who all these people that kept calling at our house were and she said, ‘I don’t know, but I’m certain of one thing and that is that something bad is happening. I feel as though there is a dark shadow over us and it frightens me.’

  The next day my father told my mother to prepare special food for some guests he had coming. My mother appeared to know who they were but wouldn’t tell me; and this is the one thing I can’t forgive her for. She could at least have told me in secret what was happening. And so the guests – all elders in the Pashtun community – arrived and ate the food my mother had prepared, and I could hear them discussing someone’s marriage. When finally they left my mother asked me to help her wash the dishes, and I helped because there was nothing else to do. From the very day my father had found out about my love for Abdullah he had banned me from going to school and even from leaving the house, so I was effectively a prisoner in my own home. And during this time, with nothing to do, all I did was dream about Abdullah. But of course I heard nothing from him, as it was far too dangerous for him to get in touch; my family would not have hesitated to have him and me killed if he had so much as tried to contact me.

  While I was washing the dishes my mother said, ‘Hurry up with the washing-up. I need to put henna on your hands’. I asked why she wanted to do this when it wasn’t Eid or any other special occasion, and she replied, ‘It’s because you’re getting married. Tomorrow you will be going to a new home.’ For one wild and happy moment, I thought I was going to be reunited with my love, and felt like a bird that has just been released from its cage.

  I asked my mother, ‘Is he going to come for me?’ and she shouted at me, ‘Have you no shame? Haven’t I told you to forget Abdullah? Don’t ever mention his name in front of your husband or your life will be a living hell.’

  I began crying, ‘But I don’t want this to happen. Who is this man? Father can’t do this to me.’

  ‘Your father can certainly do this, and what you want has nothing to do with it. Your father has already taken a lot of money from this family to see you married.’

  I begged my mother to help me escape, but she began crying and saying that I had committed a sin and must be punished for it. I pleaded with her that I wasn’t a criminal and only wanted to be with Abdullah. At the very mention of his name she slapped me and called me shameless.

  You should be thankful your father didn’t kill you. If he were like other Afghan fathers he would have disowned you by now. At least he is civil to you. At this I began screaming that I would rather be dead than marry another man, as I loved Abdullah and knew he was waiting for me. My mother scoffed at the mention of love, saying it was nonsense and that Afghan girls didn’t love boys and were certainly not allowed to marry someone they loved.

  I spent the whole night crying and refused to let my mother paint henna on my hands. I was a wretchedly unhappy bride. At midday, my uncle and one of my brothers came to fetch me. But I was a bride without a wedding, and I didn’t even have the traditional new dress usually given to brides or any presents. Above all, though, I couldn’t believe the fact that no one in my family had any sympathy for me. I clung to the doorpost as my uncle dragged me away, before bundling me into a car. Waiting for me in that car was my new husband, a forty-year-old drug addict. I kept crying and shouted at the man in the car, ‘Uncle, please tell them not to take me’, but he just laughed and said I was the first bride to call her husband an uncle. He grasped my hand in his large, rough hand and said, ‘Shut your mouth. I’m your husband now and I’ve paid a lot of money for you.’

  He kept repeating that I was his now, and when he smiled I could see his yellow teeth. He was laughing, happy that he would soon be having sex with a fourteen-year-old virgin. A part of me died then, and my family ceased to exist for me. I’d extinguished any feelings I’d had for them.

  Even though I couldn’t see Nasreen’s face I could tell that she had once been beautiful, but that life and hardship had aged her. A feeling of trust had sprung up between us.

  Zari, dear, all the happy times I’d ever had with my family were gone. My relationship with my mother was no more, and I’d left behind my precious bangles. I didn’t even have a spare set of clothes. That day, although my soul died, my love for Abdullah lived on and the pain of being separated from him was sharper than ever. It was the start of a lifetime of suffering.

  I asked Nasreen if she had ever seen Abdullah again. She said she hadn’t, and that she hadn’t even seen her own parents again.

  They thought I was a bad woman because I loved a man. Well, I still love him, and I want them to know that although I can’t be with him my feelings for him remain unchanged. I can even still picture his smile.

  She then returned to the story of her forced marriage.

  I was taken to this man’s home – a dark room on the outskirts of Kabul, far away from my parents’ home and far away from all the people I knew. This man, this so-called husband of mine, raped me that night; a forty-year-old man sexually assaulted me, a young girl. But I was already dead inside and my innocence was shattered. I could never forget Abdullah, though, and I really hope he has married someone nice and has a happy family life.

  My married life began and I lived like a maid, cooking this man’s food, eating the leftovers and even preparing his hashish. Sometimes he would beat me up as though I were an animal if I was too slow making his tea or preparing his drugs. I just wanted to die. But now I’m an old woman living a pointless, empty life who is simply waiting for God to end it. This is my story.

  At this point I stopped recording, my head full of thoughts of Nasreen and her wretched life. I thought too of how she would have been when she was fourteen, fresh and pretty, and tried to work out how I would edit this material. When Nasreen’s story eventually went out on air, I noticed some of my Afghan colleagues here in London made snide comments about her. One said that since she’d fallen in love when she was so young then it wasn’t surprising she’d had to face the consequences. I was at a loss to know what to say. To me, Nasreen was just an ordinary girl who’d had a crush on a boy, as many girls do at that age. Her love was innocent, and in my opinion she’d done nothing wrong by simply following her feelings, but she’d paid a terrible price for doing so.

  I know in most societies women are not judged simply for liking a man and that relationships are allowed to develop naturally; a woman and man understand each other, their love grows and they can choose whether to get married. As a result girls and boys learn from what they see and begin to understand how to go about finding the right partner. Yet here I was in the UK having to endure the sneers of some of my male colleagues. I didn’t say anything in response, though, but kept quiet. I may have been living in the UK but I was working in a male Afghan environment, so I couldn’t defend Nasreen or
some of my colleagues would see me as a woman who was using the radio to encourage other women to do shameful things. All I could do was pray that Nasreen would be the last girl to suffer in this way.

  One important thing I have learnt from Nasreen’s story is that no matter where an Afghan woman or girl lives – whether she is brought up in the UK or in Kabul – as long as she is Afghan, she is not allowed to fall in love or express her love for a man openly, and most especially not to her mother or father. To do so would be unacceptable and bring shame on the family. If she were to have an open relationship with a man whom she might one day want to marry, she would be subject to gossip and back-biting from within her community. It wouldn’t matter if her parents had brought her up to be a responsible member of society; within her community all her good qualities would be ignored and she’d be branded a slut.

  Over the past four years I have met some young Afghan women who have boyfriends, but their relationships are usually kept within a circle of friends most of whom are not Afghan. They tend to live two very different lives in one city: when they are away from the family home, they are just like any other Western girl, but once they’re back home they become a traditional Afghan woman, who doesn’t talk about men, go out with friends or enjoy a loving relationship with a man. I personally consider Nasreen to be an immensely brave woman; she at least had the courage to tell her mother about her love for Abdullah, and I can understand just how hard that must have been. If even I – a financially independent Afghan woman living in an open society like the UK – find it hard to talk about my true feelings with my family, then I can fully appreciate just what Nasreen has been through by revealing her love for Abdullah within her closed world.

  I often find the attitude of some Afghans here in the UK very upsetting. Some have been living here for more than ten years but they have maintained strong Afghan traditions and cultural values. On my visits to Afghanistan I’ve met a number of different Afghan men and women, and have been interested to find that some of those who stayed in their own country were much more relaxed about accepting changing values that might have been seen as damaging to their family honour or culture twenty years ago. For example, in some cities families have started letting their daughters and sons go abroad for higher education, taking up the scholarships being offered to young Afghans by Western countries. Yet here in London I have met Afghan parents who strongly oppose the idea of their sons or daughters even living in student halls of residence, as the family’s reputation could be damaged. Reputation and the family name is everything. So if a daughter marries the man of her parents’ choosing, she will be respected and held up as an example to other girls who dream of falling in love. This is the pressure young Afghan women struggle to live with.