A Different Kind of Daughter

by Maria Toorpakai

  *

  Monday to Friday at school, I was a failure. My first classrooms had all been rocky valleys, running amok with a slingshot. I’d learned what I needed to know from my father under jamun trees, or sitting on clay floors listening to the anecdotes of the motley crew he brought home as gifts for our psyches. The first day of school, I remember sitting at the clean desk, running my fingers over the smooth polished wood. Right away I knew that I was in a different kind of school—a real one. Students weren’t all jammed into a dreary room, arguing over pencil stubs and scraps of paper. Electric lights overhead brightened clean white walls. There were long hallways and bathrooms. Bells chimed between lessons. The school had computers, big blackboards, and up-to-date maps. At first, I thought the luster of such prosperity would make a difference. I had my own dictionary, textbooks, and a calculator. My teacher even flat-out ignored the fact that I was sitting in a girls’ classroom in pants. The girls surrounding me like exotic creatures giggled, some said hello and talked about my sister, but they never made me feel out of place. People seemed to accept the fact that I had lived most of my life as a boy. The idea was so unfathomable that it was untouchable—permissible. There were far larger problems looming in our world than how I chose to dress. Still, every morning after the first bell, I sat down, notebook open, and within minutes had my head down behind a book—fast asleep.

  I had some of the best dreams of my life at that desk: back in Darra fashioning bows and arrows; flying kites; flying planes. The teachers and administration didn’t know what to do with the forever slumbering Maria Toorpakai. My ability to sleep through classes with students chattering and bells signaling the hours became legendary. Exasperated teachers rapped me with rulers; fellow students doused my head in water. Nothing worked. Even when I came to school on ten hours’ sleep, I still slept through class. I couldn’t help it. Even on the school bus I would be fast asleep and drooling in my sister’s lap all the way.

  Inside my desk a stack of notebooks, one for every subject, gathered dust. After two or three months and a roster of failing grades, my homeroom teacher asked to see those notebooks, stood over me, and thumbed through the blank pages. I remember watching her trembling fingers sifting through each one, almost desperate to see some evidence of attention. She had a look on her face that even now I can’t decipher—a kind of horrified disbelief so intense that she said nothing. Over the weeks, that same teacher had tried unsuccessfully to find me a book to read that I might enjoy, an independent project that I might take to—she might as well have tried to catch a minnow in her hand. I had never learned a thing that way, and I told her so.

  “I can’t learn anything sitting, Madam. I must move around. Sitting here under these lights shuts off my brain.”

  Not long after that, I was called to the office and expelled. When my father came home, he said nothing, just read the school letter and looked over at me. I knew he was running out of ideas, and so was I. For the first time, when our eyes met, I saw fear. The fact was, my family simply did not know what to do with me.

  No longer bound to school, I bicycled all over town. It was during my return to Bara Gate from a long trek across the city that I discovered that the world was off its rocker. A lazy glide; I wasn’t in a rush as I moved from the main street into the narrower roads, avoiding a stretch of closed sections. Until riding around and zeroing in on home that day, the war hadn’t touched me. Before I got to the end of the lane around the corner from my house, drifting, feet off the pedals, legs stretched way out, I would feel the war in my bones. If for Americans the war began with those horrifying visions on 9/11, for me it started with an interrupted bike ride.

  Just ahead, leaning against the sidewall, I saw a man smoking a small brown joint that I knew at a glance was a drug—likely hashish. And I knew from his glazed and shiftless look, eyes darting around into nothing, that he was an addict of one kind or another. Often those men and boys loitered together, their faces lost in a sickly stupor that almost frightened me—under bridges, in the alleys, or just wandering half alive along the roads. This one was a solitary creature, large rolling headscarf and dark sun-bitten skin. I was sure that I’d seen him around before. As he leaned back and raised his arm to take a drag, a pistol poked out from his waistband. I would never have slowed down if it hadn’t been for that pistol. The moment I saw the star emblazoned on the handle, I was back in the kitchen with my father in Darra Adam Khel—it was a Makarov, just like mine.

  I risked a glimpse into his eyes as I slowed, and that’s what did it, I think. With a swiftness and strength I could not have anticipated, the man stepped forward, closing the gap. Then, as though catching prey, he reached out and took hold of my back wheel and lifted it off the ground. For a few seconds the wheel continued to spin as I tried to pedal against nothing but air. For some reason, perhaps as a way to quell the shock, I thought of Newton’s first law of motion—my feet moved fast to the ground.

  I could feel my body start to shake, and I didn’t know why. Nothing had happened yet; the man hadn’t so much as said a word as he came around to face me. It was around noon when most people took their midday naps. The whole city seemed deserted. The man was taking his time looking me over, head to toe. I pressed my palms against my sweat-slicked thighs. If I could have thought of a thing to say, I would have said it—but within a moment, he spoke. A metallic sourness tinged his hot breath, which hit me like a stream of exhaust. He was high on something—there was no question of that—but he was still solid and sure of himself.

  “What are you?”

  I had no idea what to say to him.

  “Pashtun—Wazir.”

  My answer only irritated him, and he shook me on the bike.

  “I know that. I’ve seen you coming and going out of that house over there. What are you—sister, brother, son, or daughter?

  The question itself told me that I was already damned, and I would not answer him. Before I could think of a way out, I saw him toss the smoldering joint to the ground. It crumbled but continued to burn and I glanced down at it for a second. It looked like it was full of searing dirt. The scent was strangely acrid and made my eyes water. Then he moved right next to me and his hands went to my arms, hauling me right off the seat. As we struggled my bike went to the pavement, scraping my calves. I didn’t expect his strength or the pain that came with it, so I could barely take a breath as he grabbed me again and brought his face close to mine.

  Against my cheeks, I could feel his breathing, which never quickened, and I fixed my wide eyes on his tossed stub, still burning by my feet. The scent was strange—hot and almost sweet— as the smoke snaked up my body to my flaring nostrils. I zeroed in on it, needing something to cast my attention on before I vomited. It wasn’t hashish, which you could smell all over town. Hot stomach acid churned in my gut. I began to flail, and he held me harder. No matter how I maneuvered I could not break free of his grasp and he pushed his weight against me, I heard something fall from the folds of his clothes to the ground right at my feet. I looked down fast to a small clear sack, the strange contents spilling out. The things were peculiar: a collection of short brown stubs, curved and ribbed along their length and tapered at one end to a tiny fork—part insect. I knew instantly when I saw them—just like the pistol, they brought back memories of Darra—that the things in the bag were scorpion tails. Addicts who ran out of drugs often resorted to collecting venomous creatures and smoked the poison in tobacco as a last resort. Sometimes, smoking scorpions was the only way they could get high until they got their hands on more dope.

  Then he asked his question again and the sliver of air between us seemed to go instantly hot. He looked at me then with red rimmed eyes, in whose perverse stare I read his full intent. His breath was rancid. If I stayed there, I was sure he would try to find the answer that I would not give. When I felt his hands twitch against my wrists, adrenaline took over. Hard and fast, my knee moved like a hammer, hitting him in the groin. As he stumbled back a pa
ce, I stepped forward and kicked him again, but harder. I was screaming words like dog and bastard. He went to his knees and let out a groan. Moving away, I saw the broken end of a pipe on the ground and picked it up. Then I looked down at him as he peered up at me, squinting as I held it high over him.

  “Yes—I’m a girl—sister, daughter, Wazir.

  Then I tossed the pipe. I could see that he couldn’t get up.

  Finally I got on the bike, muscles pulsing, and every part of me ignited in terror. As I raced off, my head screaming, I heard him holler after me that I was a sin—and that my time was coming. When I got home, I went to the side of the house and was sick to my stomach.

  Over the following few days, I saw that man again all around Bara Gate, smoking his scorpion tails. He lurked along the neighboring roads, waiting for me. Once or twice he was right outside our door, just watching as I came and went. In the end, I had to tell my father what had happened, or I believed eventually the man would do far worse. When I told him, I cried as never before. I knew that he was not the type of tribal man who punished his daughter for being violated—but for reasons I didn’t understand, I was still ashamed.

  He wouldn’t summon the police—that’s not how things were done in Peshawar at that time. The police would expect a bribe just to open a case, and plenty more to keep it open. Even then, we’d be lucky if they did anything, and we’d have even less money than before. When I saw the darkness fall over my father’s face as I let the details unravel, I expected the pistol to come out, and for him to get up and leave, find the man, and mete out justice. But my father just listened stone-faced in his fury, asked a few questions, and was quiet. Then he made tea and sat for hours, doing nothing, just thinking. I was sure he was looking for a way to kill my assailant and get away with it—it would be hard in a city with so many people around—or to beat him senseless so that he never came back.

  When the time came, I followed my father out and we walked the one block it took to find the offender. The man who’d been harassing me was standing around as usual, smoking another poison-laced reefer. During our talk, my father had explained that while scorpion venom made people high, it also made them angry. Baba had noticed the man around our neighborhood, knew who he was, and had wondered why he’d been watching our house.

  We stood in the street, the men faced each other, no more than a foot between them. I waited defiantly behind my father. For a long time, they just stood there deep in a conversation that never showed a moment of hostility. They spoke about my family, who we were and where we came from—my father calm and tall in his pressed clothes. I heard Baba tell the man to stay well away from his children, or that he would not be as kind on their next meeting. The man nodded and looked around, smoking. After my father was done speaking, the man offered to take us for tea, but we did not accept. Then he shrugged and offered my father, who he now knew came from a prestigious family, an apology. After a time, the Afghan addict wandered off down the road into the haze, and my father and I walked slowly back home. As we approached our house, I could feel my own anger rise like another kind of venom. My father had done nothing, just talked. When he walked through the door, he assured me, hands on my shoulders, that I would never see that man again.

  For the first and last time, I was angry with my father, and I showed it. I thought he was a coward. He should have beaten or killed the man for coming near me. It was how things were done. My father walked away from me just as I unleashed a tirade of tears and accusations. I stopped talking, followed him into the living room, sputtering. We sat on mats over the floor, me shaking as he quietly explained things, about the war going on and the Taliban and the other militant groups hell-bent on jihad, and what they wanted—what most of the legions of jihadists who’d infiltrated our country wanted—their version of Islam, that targeted women—freedom—girls just like my mother and sister . . . and me.

  “The scorpion venom that man smokes is not nearly as dangerous as the poison in his mind. If I had done what I wanted to, what you expected of me, many more men like him—soldiers of jihad—might have come here. This thing he did to you is much bigger than you or I or what we think is right. It’s part of a holy war.”

  The truth was that I didn’t really understand what he was telling me. I’d been robbed of my dignity and then of the justice I thought a Pashtun father owed his violated daughter. It would take me years to untangle the knots of that anger and to figure out that he had been wise. What my father had done out there on the roadside, sweet-talking a crazed militant, kept his family— kept me—alive.

  14. Rupees for My Mother

  After my expulsion from school, alone in the empty house, I was lost in idleness. My second-hand racquet bag, tucked away in a corner, called. Sometimes I spent a whole hour just looking at it leaning against the wall like a rifle. In the end, I didn’t ask for permission. I still wanted to play, just not among that abusive gang of boys; my father didn’t want me to either. The entire family would be gone all afternoon—teaching, learning, and improving themselves, making the wages on which we survived. I finally went to the bag, got down on my knees, and unzipped it. When I took out the racquet and held it in my hand, it felt like a third arm. I twirled the handle, and a thousand shots screamed to come out. I sat there a long while, toying, thinking, wishing.

  Instead of putting the equipment back in the bag, I took it with me into the kitchen. The far wall in there was long and painted bone white. At a glance, I knew there was enough space to hammer out a good shot. That was all I had in mind, one clean hit—maybe two. There was nothing to do but let the hours rot. Several times each week, I rode the bike on routine errands. Cleaned house. Cooked meals. Slept the dullness away. Sometimes I asked Allah for just one colorful dream of the open plains, of the rushing rivers—of my mother’s smile, which I hadn’t seen for weeks, as though she’d lost it on the long road between home and FATA. Those dreams never came.

  I pushed a small table all the way across the room to the other end; moved a stool; took down a map of the world. Then I raised a flat hand to the high, unblemished wall. It was perfect. All quiet in the kitchen, I stood with legs and arms poised. I could hear the dull drone of cars moving along Bara Road; sirens; squawking birds and wails of children. The ball warmed, smooth and so familiar in the cradle of my palm. I readied the racquet. Steady as a pump, my lungs filled with air, my mind shed everything but the moment at hand. Then I made my hit—the ball shot across the kitchen, smacking the whitewash. A thunderclap of sound ricocheted all through the vacant house and all through my body. A forgotten switch turned on, and every neglected muscle along my limbs suddenly awakened. When the ball came back fast, I slammed it, again and again, splitting the air. A long, uninterrupted drill ensued, cutting through time like tearing out a dull chapter from a book. When I finally missed the ball, I had to stop a moment and put down the racquet. I just stood in the dim kitchen, letting the ball drop to the cement ground. Bent over, hands on my once-pummeled knees, I closed my eyes and laughed out loud. Not a soul there to hear me. Then I stood up again and went back to it—harder. After that, I didn’t stop for anything— food or drink or the long nap I’d been taking to wipe away each afternoon. I fired off shots for hours. The racquet had possessed me.

  After days of covert kitchen drills, my only ball split down the middle. I might have thought those kitchen games were over for the time being, if I hadn’t passed the broken lamp in the living room. I stared at the silver cast covering the joint and went to the cabinet where we kept things like hammers, nails, gun oil, thumbtacks, a broken abacus—and my father’s prized duct tape. Finding the roll, I cut a small piece and put the tape back just as I’d found it. I wrapped the ball along the crack, and then I went back to the game. For a while, the fix held fast. When it finally gave way and the ball was ruined beyond repair, I had no choice: in the high heat of mid-afternoon, I hopped on the Sohrab. There was no thought of going inside the building. I had sworn I never would again. But alon
g the outside courtyard and walkways, players often tossed their old, battered balls to the ground, scattered as litter. Foraging for squash balls became routine. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I’d find a new one lost in a hedge or in the gutter. Though my activities were still clandestine, I took great pride in filling up my days—and without costing my parents a rupee. We simply didn’t have enough money for frivolities like squash balls, and I didn’t want to tell them what I was doing. My father knew that I had suffered at the courts and he was concerned about my even considering going back there. He had yet to think of what to do with his peculiar daughter, and I was angry with myself for placing such a burden upon him. I didn’t know how to tell him the simple truth: leaving the squash academy had been a mistake. Idleness was a far worse enemy than the boys and their taunts. Lately, when my father looked at me, all I saw was worry. While my siblings walked clear-cut paths—Ayesha elected proctor at school; Taimur studying with friends; the twins starting at a grade school up the road—I seemed only to drift around them on a lonesome current.

  I must have gone on for weeks playing games against imaginary opponents in our kitchen—palms rebuilding calluses; limbs refashioning muscle; heart rediscovering its passion. It never occurred to me to simply ask to go back to the courts. When my father raised a concern you always considered it. So I lost myself in those hours of secret tournaments, drilling the ball until my body simply gave up and collapsed to the floor, sprawled over the cold cement like a dripping rag. What my parents couldn’t know was that squash was saving me. When the racquet slipped into my hand, all self-doubt evaporated. When I hit the ball, there was nothing else, and maybe that’s why, when my father came home early one day and stood watching me in the doorway, I didn’t see him.