A Different Kind of Daughter

by Maria Toorpakai

  For Pakistan, as for the rest of the world, 9/11 cut a red line through time. What we lived before would bear little resemblance to what came after. Members of Al Qaeda littered Afghanistan. Their leader, Osama bin Laden, was living there under the protection of the reigning Taliban regime. When the Taliban refused to hand him over to the West, the West mobilized their armies. Just over two weeks after the attacks, Pakistan shifted its long-held support of the Taliban regime to the United States and its allies. It was not a decision without serious ramifications for our country. Since 1947, when the creation of the Durand Line cleaved the tribal region, Afghanistan had refused to accept that border and staked a claim to the Pashtun territory on the Pakistani side. To keep the peace, Pakistan had to make concessions to Afghanistan; they also had to consider their complex and contentious relationship with India on the other side of the country. Political decisions had nothing to do with right and wrong, and everything to do with the survival of the nation. One wrong move and Pakistan could easily have found itself sandwiched between pairs of bared teeth. When the American president, George W. Bush, declared to the world that either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists, Pakistan took note—and decided that it would be a bad idea to go up against a superpower.

  The US-led coalition’s war in Afghanistan was over quickly— in less than three months. After a final bloody stand at a fort near Mazar-e-Sharif in November, the Taliban fell. However people may have rejoiced at the surrender of that barbaric regime, the violence had barely taken its first breaths. My father predicted it, though it would take me years to understand what he meant; pacing our living room, he kept repeating the phrase Pandora’s box and shaking his head. Militants hell-bent on crushing the Western invaders—Taliban, Al Qaeda, Uzbek, Tajik, Chechen, and Arab, including Osama bin Laden himself, moved stealthily in and out of Afghanistan across the porous Durand Line, as their ancestors had for centuries. They burrowed into the unforgiving terrain under the protection of elders, with whom they shared a history predating Christ, in remote villages all over the tribal belt.

  To tribal men, history is far longer than a single conflict. To them, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan was a transient setback. Surrender was just a word—the war was a long way from ending. Pushed back, the militants were simply regrouping and biding their time. This wasn’t just a conflict, it was a full-scale jihad—a crusade for God against the invading infidels. There was no ending it with bunker-busters and paper. And it didn’t matter that Pakistan was an ally of the invading armies; those militants were free to move about, deep inside the region—a no-man’s-land that had never fallen under the dominion of any single power. In the months and years that followed, the militant groups grew stronger and more numerous. Meanwhile, civilian refugees from the war flooded our city. Slowly, over time, dread crept over Peshawar like a fog.

  Camouflaged among hordes of displaced Afghans, embittered soldiers of jihad also poured in, gathering a quiet army. They assembled in safe houses or hid within the squalor of the refugee camps on the fringes of the city. Those stealthy fighters hunkered down, built up caches of weapons, expanded their networks, organized contingents of drug dealers and kidnappers, indoctrinated the helpless, the homeless, the hungry, and the addicted—then they hatched their plans and did the one thing they were far better at than their enemies: like those dogs hunting in the hills, they surrounded their prey, closed in, and waited.

  *

  When we moved to a house in Bara Gate, a quieter neighborhood located southwest of downtown Peshawar, everyday life became easier. The education board provided principals and other employees with housing in pleasant residential colonies when it was available, and my mother had waited months for her name to come up on the waiting list. It was 2002, and I never thought about the war in Afghanistan or the attacks or what was happening in the hills beyond our busy urban valley. It might as well have been a thousand miles away.

  Even after 9/11, my father continued teaching at colleges deep inside FATA, which forced him into a tedious cycle of commuting many hours each week in and out of increasingly hostile territory. Though it was far too dangerous for our family to live there, he would not give up his post working and teaching classes in those tiny pockets of peace that still existed. Every morning, he packed a bag, grabbed a piece of fruit, a strand of holy beads, and got on the bus. He crossed the many military checkpoints and changed buses, taking him deep into the tribal belt. No authority questioned his presence there. If you were a full-blooded Pashtun, you were simply allowed in. When he came home to us at night, on the same bus, like any other father coming back from work, you could see in his face, dust-covered and tired, that he’d seen things out there that he wouldn’t speak of until years later: bodies full of bullet holes left to rot at the side of the road, whole villages ransacked—not a girl in sight.

  Our house in Bara Gate was a modest brick-and-mortar dwelling, but we had windows that let in full beams of light; stairs; a front and back door. You could hear the constant car-and-motorbike buzz of the city. Just blocks away from the two-lane main street of Bara Road, we finally had the one thing I longed for—our own postage stamp-sized piece of sky. The house nestled within a neighborhood full of local schools, and when I ventured out, children were everywhere—running the lanes, jumping rope in their multicolored clothes. I cycled to the PAF Jansher Khan Squash Complex, and my siblings were close to their schools.

  We had little money for anything beyond the basic staples; our clothes were ratty; we took our shoes in satchels to the cobbler until he could do no more. More than once, my small brothers went barefoot for a time. One thing compensated for the poverty, and that was stone’s-throw access to a genuine education. Every one of my siblings was going to a good school. My father thought of me as a completely different child from the others, and decided that I needed to be free to learn outside, in the open air as I always had. I simply did not fit with the subdued and studious children around me who could bury themselves in books for hours. Outside, my imagination, which was filled with as much adventure as any Hollywood movie, came to life. My father believed that to keep me alive and happy, I should not be caged. I was smart and one way or the other, he said, I would learn what I needed to learn—and I did. So, I stayed on the sidelines, acquiring an education of a different kind: playing sports; helping out at home; listening to the lessons in math, geometry, and physics as my parents taught my brothers and sisters from textbooks—and roaming the city from gate to gate.

  The month of July 2002 was remarkable for its heat and dust. The many Pashtuns who populated our neighborhood had taken to congregating in large groups on the side of the road, in the flimsy shade of awnings and half-dead trees, where they huddled in the dry haze, all dressed in loose white clothes. I watched them through a veil of dust, the hot ground radiating up my bruised legs. When I look back at that time, I always see it the same way, as though filmed through a strange gold filter of dust that still sends a chill up my spine. What those men spoke of—battles and bloodshed—was just background noise. Gliding past them slowly, I heard snippets of stories and words that had yet to find their meaning in my mind—“Taliban” was the most common. I didn’t know it at the time, but that summer was a watershed.

  For the first time since the partition of 1947, the Pakistani army deployed troops into the autonomous tribal regions. Their presence in a region paranoid about outsiders came after negotiations with the main tribes, but not every clan had agreed to that influx of armed government soldiers. Despite a massive effort by the army, only a handful of terrorists were actually caught or handed over in the villages. Taking advantage of the Pashtunwali code of hospitality, they found safe havens everywhere. Before long, Wazir subtribes saw the Pakistani army’s continued presence on their land as a brazen attempt to subjugate their people and take over, and slowly over time, the natural mistrust turned malignant.

  My mother returned to her post as principal of the school in Darra Adam Khel. This ti
me, the education board gave her what she asked for: her students had a proper cement schoolhouse, textbooks, blackboards, a badminton set, cricket bats and balls, pencils and paper—just not enough teachers, only my mother and a handful of others were at the helm and taking on as many classes as they could manage. Though the nearby border hills often thundered as tensions grew—bombs, grenades, machine-gun fire—there were still children, families trying to carve out a life in the valleys, to harvest crops, feed and raise herds, run small village shops, and go to school. The future was the only weapon they had. As my mother said as she packed up her satchel each morning and went out to take the bus, which still made the daily journey through checkpoints: what is written is written. Our parents were always back home in time to eat with us at dinner.

  If I was unhappy about anything at that time, it was about playing squash with boys. I lived just a pleasant cycle up Bara Road from the squash complex, past the booming passenger planes of Bacha Khan Airport and the screaming military jets of the neighboring air force base. The sounds of the planes taking off and landing sucked all the air out of my lungs. Sometimes I had to stop at the side of the road, squinting up as a jet screamed over the city like a blades tearing apart the sky. The main streets were as wide as the Indus and seemed as long. Scooting fast around Peshawar Ring Road, all the cars racing around and around in a huge circle, my feet working against the pedals to keep up and make my exit, the world was just a dizzy blur. When I got to the complex, heart hammering, clothes soaked in sweat, I knew what would happen. The boys would start to come out as soon as I opened the main door, as though predators alert to prey. I kept at it because the sport itself—its swiftness and the feel of my racquet hitting the ball—took me out of whatever torments I suffered. If my brother was around, he’d play a long set. From time to time, the staff at the complex were still good for a game, but I had stopped participating in the painfully awkward group sessions. Still, it didn’t matter how I tried to lie low—the pack was after me.

  As I passed along the corridor to the courts, the pounding rhythm of games in full swing stopped. Boys turned in their boxes and watched as I went by. I knew they hated me—for my poor clothes, my wild hair that was not quite short and not quite long, for the single earring I wore in my lobe as though to taunt them with uncertainty—for beating them one after the other, and then for throwing my racquet against the glass and breaking it, which I had come to realize had been a colossal mistake. I had let them know that they were getting to me, and I couldn’t win once that cat-and-mouse game started. If I kept losing my temper, I could be kicked out of the academy, and all those boys knew it. Unfortunately, their silent harassment was hard for me to explain and prove to the officials.

  For months I believed that if I was quiet, they’d grow tired of the routine and just let me play and learn the game. I opened the door into the last court in the long rank, got out my racquet, and hit the ball—just softening up the rubber. In my mind, I was already counting—not the number of hits but the number of seconds it would take for them all to come out like animals lured from their cages. I don’t think I ever reached a full minute before I sensed them—three or four regulars usually among them. It always started out the same way: they’d just stand behind the glass looking into my court, running their eyes all over my body as if they were hands. If I turned to look, one might make a lewd gesture with his mouth or his tongue that would set fire to the skin on my face. Playing was impossible with those boys leering at me, and I often fumbled around the court, missing the ball, tripping over my feet. In three months of playing that way, I hadn’t made any progress, though I played for hours each day. I could never forget they were there, taking turns, as though in preplanned shifts, to torment me. Shame kept me from telling the coach . . . from telling a soul. It was part of a campaign to defeat me, and I knew I was losing.

  My father was outside when I came home the last day, standing in the open front doorway looking up at the volatile west. A jet boomed past, circled our city, and then screeched off again to the hills. It was almost dusk, and I remember that he had a cup of green tea in his hand and was slowly sipping it. Lately, he was always out there like a sentry, waiting in the soft dusk for me to come home. I set the Sohrab against the house, threw down my racquet bag, tied my shoe, wouldn’t meet his gaze. I rubbed my hands together—the rims of my palms were landscapes of cracked calluses. I had cycled home in a frenzy, as I fought my tormentors in my head. I knew that with one blow I could crush them, each and every one, but that that would mean the end of squash for life. The havoc that paradox unleashed in my mind was breaking me. Within seconds, I could feel my father’s eyes on me and looked over. I knew a question was on the tip of his tongue—not about my day, which he could read just from the hunch in my shoulders. Sometimes our father would greet us with a quiz.

  “Maria, I watched you racing down the street like a Tasmanian tiger and knew I had to ask you one thing.”

  “Okay, Baba.”

  “First law of motion—do you know it?”

  My answer was instant—I didn’t have to think at all. “A body in a state of motion will remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it. Sort of like me riding the bike and then braking to make it stop. Of course, gravity plays a part.”

  My smiling father nodded and took a long drink. Leaning against the doorframe in his clean shalwar kameez, he stood as languid as any man of leisure, though he was anything but—no one could have guessed that he’d been in and out of a simmering war zone that day.

  “How is it, Maria, that you know all three of Newton’s laws of motion, though you haven’t really gone to school? Some kids your age are only just learning to use a ruler.”

  “You are my school, Baba, and I listen while the others learn. Last night, you studied physics with Taimur and I learned all about velocity.”

  A small laugh and he put his cup on the ground and came up to me. Saying nothing, he took my hands and held them out flat, running his long fingers across the crusts of hardened skin. Then he looked right through me as though he’d spent the day watching me in the courts, seen the boys assault me with their eyes, and heard for himself the crude words that I could barely hear as I pounded the ball with my racquet while the boys pounded their fists against the back glass.

  “When I look at your hands I see a passion for the game. Then I looked at your face when you came back here and I see the opposite—apathy. I’ve been wondering what to do, and I think I know. You won’t like the idea, but it’s for the best. It’s time for you to try school again.”

  My father. He taught me everything I knew—and I was weary. I didn’t have any fight in me. I could not defy him, not then— not ever. And the truth was, I felt he might be right. When I put my racquet away in a corner, I thought it was for good.

  *

  The Warsak Model School, where my brother and sister went five days a week, was a short bus ride from our home. It still stands today, the same well-regarded institution, and it was one of the reasons that we moved to Peshawar in the first place. I remember that the first time my mother saw it, she came home, sat down, and wept. A brick building with a clean courtyard and modern facilities: computers, laboratories, and a library. My sister flourished there, fulfilling each dream my parents had for her. Every day, she got off the bus, satchel full of books, mind filled with new knowledge, and she met the expectations that came with her miracle: like my mother, she found herself in the top 1 percent—a tribal girl receiving a fine education. My sister, with her white veil and placid manners, was a model student. And then there was me.

  When the school bus picked us up, I was dressed in a scratchy pair of brown pants. Fiddling with the folds in the wide chador draped over my shoulders, I couldn’t seem to stop the fabric from slipping—I refused to wear it over my head of untamed hair. From the age of four I’d never worn a veil, and I wasn’t about to start at twelve. No one made me—it was enough that I was there. Watching the bus pul
l up, I could hear the cacophony of children’s voices singing out of the open windows. Dread sat in my gut like a stone. I looked at my watch: it wasn’t yet eight o’clock, and already I was counting down the hours and minutes. Before we stepped aboard, Ayesha explained that the boys and girls were segregated on the bus—the boys at the back, the girls at the front, and the teachers all along the bench in the middle. I heard her, but didn’t listen.

  As Ayesha nestled into a front row seat, I bent down against the low ceiling, hauling my tattered bag of books and canteen, eyes low over the dirty floorboards. Questioning eyes moved over me like heat lamps. Past the teachers’ bench, I walked all the way to the back. Ayesha had told everyone she knew that her sister had just been admitted. One look at me, my big muscled frame, my boyish clothes, and they said nothing—just watched dumbfounded. They must have expected a smaller version of Ayesha and not her hulking opposite in a pair of pants. As I passed each row, the chorus of voices died down. I took an empty seat among all the boys, who simply shifted their weight to give me room. I could smell their male heat rising in the small space as I settled in. Finally, one of the teachers called out to me to move, but I refused—not in words, I just smiled and shrugged. The bus started up and peeled into the traffic. After a moment, the teacher laughed a little, her face reddening as she gave up. I don’t know why I sat there—it wasn’t a protest. Apart from Ayesha, I’d grown up among boys, a member of their packs, usually the leader. I didn’t know a thing about being a girl among girls.

  Sitting on the plastic-covered bench as we moved through the main street, I looked up the rows of seats. Every face on that bus was turned to me but Ayesha’s. Way up front, I could see the back of her white chador as she sat still, looking straight out at the street, her soft hands no doubt folded in her lap. At that moment, I loved her more than at any other time. Somehow, by saying and doing nothing, Ayesha had protected me. They respected her, they respected my parents for teaching the forgotten tribal children, and so they let me be.