Now I am the sole and first ever Pakistani and tribal Pashtun girl to represent Pakistan in international squash tournaments, reaching the rank of number 58 while securing the World Junior number 3 title. I am training hard to achieve the world number 1 position; but as you see, I come from a highly conservative area. I was threatened to stop playing sports, which has totally disturbed my squash for the last three years, as I couldn’t move for training and with peace of mind . . .
I will be waiting for your positive response.
Regards,
Maria Toorpakai Wazir,
Professional squash player
One email multiplied more than a thousand times in more than two years; sent out into the ether across millions of miles; landing at universities and colleges, squash camps and academies; illuminating the inboxes of international champions and coaches all over Europe, Australia, and North America—only to be ignored. During that time, my parents scrimped to pay for a third-hand laptop so that I could keep sending and checking, sending and checking, morning and night. By the summer of 2010, I was running out of places and people—I was also running out of stamina. Taliban threats loomed like a guillotine, and I was still training alone in my small room, pummeling the same dirty wall, which had gone from bone white to black, end to end.
I’d made up my mind not to fall apart again and just managed to keep my psyche from unraveling. The trick was not to think too hard about how I was living and continue day to day, sometimes hour to hour. Steadfast as ever, my family had picked me up off the floor, tended to my wounds, and watched me go at it again—no questions asked. The fact was, so many other people had seen worse—like the girls confined to squalid huts in the hills, forming a ring of despair in the desolate miles outside Peshawar. For a time, ambition and hope sustained me. Every separate email going out was like a message tucked in a bottle and tossed into an ocean current. While I snapped the ball and shuffled around my room, I ran down my list of emails; the roulette wheel of pleas continued despite ever-lengthening odds. Just like the region I lived in, no one outside Pakistan wanted to touch me.
*
Taimur brought me the news, feet flying up the stairs two at a time. Soaring into my room, he all but fell straight across it, clutching a sheet of paper in his hand. Then he stood to attention, almost swaying from the delight that swirled in his eyes. Leaning against the wall, catching my breath, I looked around the room. Whenever I was interrupted in the midst of hours of drills, it was like climbing a ladder out of another place and time. When I played in that room, I wasn’t there at all: I was at the British Open in London, the Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur, in the United States up against the best players in the world— and I won every time.
I took the paper from Taimur, and from the first sentence the words seemed to rise right off the page and land all over me. As if by some preordained miracle, the 2010 National Games of Pakistan would be held in Peshawar—a stone’s throw from our house in Little FATA. Hosting the games while the Taliban prowled the full periphery of the city was an act of monumental bravery— some said it was just plain stupid. The Taliban had declared sports as haram—forbidden. Taimur watched me go to the window and gaze out in the direction of the stadium. At night, when the electricity was out in our neighborhood, I sometimes thought I could see the light of the arena punching through the darkness. I wondered who was playing whom and at what.
I already knew I was going. Holding on to the top rank in the under-seventeen and -nineteen divisions was no small feat. Just to make it to tournaments and hold my own, I had to conduct covert operations that risked my life. I believed that, given the right environment to play in—a real court for a start, and a good coach—I could be world champion. All I wanted was a fair chance, like everyone else. The games were just what my battered psyche and the whole of demoralized Peshawar needed. Twenty-one sports, top-ranked athletes from all over the country invited to compete while the rest of Pakistan watched, casting a bright light over the shadow of tyranny looming all around us. Suicide bombers had already gone racing through volleyball courts and cricket pitches uttering homicidal prayers—my father said they’d dynamite a hopscotch game if they came across one.
When at last I snapped out of the sudden daydream Taimur had handed me, I looked at my smiling brother. What I loved most about him was that while he watched my joy, he made it his own, right down to his toes, on which he rose as though filling with air. He didn’t have to say a thing. I nodded, letting him know I was going. Then he came over and picked me up, threw me over his shoulder, and lugged me around the four corners of the room. I shouted and laughed.
“Why are you so happy about this, Taimur? I play at other tournaments.”
He lowered me to the floor, hands still on my shoulders. “Don’t you know what this means, Maria? Finally, we will all get to come see you play.”
*
Just a six-minute drive from our house was one of the biggest sports arenas in Pakistan, Qayyum Stadium, with a capacity of 15,000—all packed into a bowl of bright bucket seats. From a mile away, you could hear the din of the assembling crowd, the beat of drums. As we made our approach down the cordoned-off thoroughfare, the arena floodlights pressed up into the sky in a great teal-colored arch that we all pointed to. In the absence of his beloved radio, my father was singing out loud—an Elvis Presley tune. They might take his precious machines and gadgets, but they could not take his booming voice. He belted it out—“Blue Suede Shoes”—as we all made our way down Mall Road in the glut of traffic. There were ten police and military checkpoints: we all kept our provincial ID’s at the ready. Five of us were jammed into a car borrowed from a friend of my father’s: my mother, Ayesha, and I in the backseat, the men up front. My security detail for the night were in unmarked cars front and back. Now that I was under a self-imposed house arrest, the protection officers only made random checks, or called on us if there was a new threat.
Peering out the window, I felt the warmth of my family pressed like a soft fortress all around me. How many years since we’d all traveled together in the same vehicle? So many moves— chasing freedom along the Khyber Pass, following steady jobs and good schools with my father at the wheel and the rest of us jostled in the back among the oranges and chickens and the pelting dust. Outside, in the lit-up night, the city of Peshawar awakened. In droves, the population poured out from cramped apartments and dingy houses and closed-up shops, flooding the streets in a great tide of defiant hope. On behalf of the squash federation, I was asked to carry the national flag, spotlights blazing across the full length of the playing field. Being there was a triumph—for the first time in years, I was outside in the open. No hoodie. No rushing—on the way to the arena, we never changed license plates once, as we often did in those days. Despite the multitude of threats to us all, not one athlete turned down the invitation to compete.
But one was turned away at the gates.
When we pulled up, a uniformed man approached and ushered me aside. Dressed in my full team kit, I presented my identification cards and invitation. Barely looking at them, he talked into his phone and looked me over. I stared up to the great white rim of the stadium; the glow and the fanfare poured out over the lip. All around me, the air pulsed. I could not believe that I had gone from playing in my bedroom to this. It was a great day—for Pakistan, for Peshawar, for our frayed ideals of freedom . . . for me.
The threat had come in only that afternoon, in a disturbing series of calls to the event officials. If there was one person the Taliban didn’t want at the National Games, it was me—the first Pashtun girl to play professional sports and win a national ranking. One thing singled me out from the rest—my tribal blood. I was an example to those they’d already enslaved and to those still tearing their way out of the Taliban’s nets. Outside the tall iron gates, I heard only the gist of what was said to me, the other athletes filing in holding flags and banners. All I knew was that I wasn’t going inside. Too many lives at risk. I was devast
ated, but I walked away.
Taimur told me later they’d put my picture up on the jumbo screen, my name in flashing lights. When the crowd jumped up and cheered, he said the thunder went up his legs and out his arms. My mother wiped away a tear, my father shook his fists— and I saw none of it. I was back in my room—just a twenty-minute walk down straight-as-a-blade streets; sliver of moon, not a single star; every window shuttered for the night. For once, I wasn’t afraid of being kidnapped or shot on the way home. The Taliban were too busy trying to get a bomb or a shooter into the games or plotting future acts of revenge.
The fact was, as long as I played, they’d come after me. As long as I lived in Pakistan, they could reach me. They could stuff me in a car, take me up into the barren hillsides, do things—that’s how people put it. It was widely known how they violated the girls they took before killing them. They’d done as much to female doctors and writers, artists and musicians—plucked from the streets and never seen again. In our living room, over the warm perfume of black tea, I’d often heard the stories of how they treated girls who had sinned. After I heard the first one, I secretly researched how to buy cyanide pills to keep in my bag when I went out to compete. Several times I asked my father for a gun. We weren’t living in the wild west of Darra Adam Khel anymore. I might have held my own with a Makarov while picking off cans of Fanta, or needed a pistol to fend off a lone intruder out to teach my family a lesson. In a time of unbridled jihad I was no match against a contingent of well-trained Talibs sent to kidnap and kill me. My father refused, knowing they would just turn it on me, or that I would be forced by some violent act of perversion to turn it on myself.
The street outside was submerged in darkness, all the electricity out except for the lights of the stadium. Moving along the empty road, the packed arena behind me, I knew I was doing exactly what the Taliban wanted—vanishing into the dark.
*
Days later, Taimur found the outdoor courts. Riding a bike or driving the car, he never said how. It didn’t matter. Out in the middle of a desolate park, two side-by-side squash courts sat abandoned like ancient monuments. Standing very still, you could hear birds sleeping among the reeds of a nearby pond. Taimur took me there under the cover of night, hand on my shoulder, hoodie tight over my head, blindfolded.
“Open your eyes, Maria.”
Then he let the flashlight dance over the ground, moths and insects drawn into the beam like flurries of snow. Gasping, I ran ahead, fast—faster than I’d moved my legs in a straight line in years. On my back, I stared up, those forsaken walls like a frame to a clear starry night. Grass knee-high in the long-forgotten park, the courts might as well have been in purdah with me, waiting. I felt the ground—still smooth enough. Taimur got our racquets out and started hitting. I stood up. Together, we danced around the court, the ball darting back and forth between us— pure joy. Mid-match, I turned to him, panting.
“Taimur, I will never punch you again.”
As soon as it was dark, we always found a way there, crossing the damp, wild grass that caressed my calves on the way to the lonely courts, the sounds of the night insects pulsing low to the ground. It was like sharing in a forbidden dream. Several times each week, Taimur gave me his hours like a gift and expected nothing in return but that I play well. And try my best to win.
Somehow, I did win—third at the World Juniors, and better at tournaments across South Asia—often by the skin of my teeth, and just to spite the enemy at my heels. Each time there was any publicity in the local papers, we’d hear from the Taliban. Warnings were usually leveled against my father, who still slipped in and out of the tribal areas, finding ways to teach like a Robin Hood of knowledge. There were still young minds out there, and somehow he uncovered them. When the Taliban seized one region, he moved with his bags of books and mind full of ideas to another, just like my mother changing schoolhouses. I think he secretly enjoyed what he was doing—teaching against dire odds. I know I enjoyed what I was doing—winning against them.
Every time I left the house to compete, it was the same frenetic routine: borrowing cars, switching license plates, hunkering down in the backseat under a hoodie. I began using my computer for more than just emails. I was conducting research and following the news. My father always said: Know thy enemy. In 2010, the Taliban was on a tear, overrunning FATA: North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Kurram, Orakzai, Bajaur, Mohmand, and Khyber. Once those regions fell under their dark curtain, the Taliban’s cloak settled over districts of the North-West Frontier Province, where the government had all but lost control: Tank, Dera Ismail Khan, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Hangu, Karak, Swat. In the territories over which the Taliban held dominion, they imposed their barbaric version of Islam, complete with their own courts. Noose around its neck now, the city of Peshawar was under constant siege. What I learned about my enemy, more than anything else, was that they were indomitable. I would know—I shared their warrior blood.
I was up late at night, computer screen aglow, when a three-line ad caught my eye. My inbox remained empty, and my faith was splintering. For a time, I simply gave up sending out the letters. Sometimes I sat looking out into the night, imagined the person who might answer me one day, living in a distant country—free from end to end. The ad was simple and faraway, like a diamond shining at the bottom of a deep well—Academy seeking a full-time squash coach. Several times, like focusing on a blurred line, I read the name of the academy and the man who ran it. Already I knew his face, had tried to copy his magical trick shots, and dreamed often of doing what he did—just once. Fingers hovering over the keys, I hesitated a moment and then started to type:
To: Jonathon Power
From: Maria Toorpakai
Subject: want to coach squash
Anyone who knew anything about squash in Pakistan, or anywhere, knew the name and the auburn-haired legend behind it. Jonathon Power—double world champion—needed a coach for his new academy in Toronto, Canada. Across the Atlantic, on the other side of the world. I pressed SEND and turned off my computer. Got my racquet.
*
In the dead of night, moonless and warm, Taimur shone his flashlight over the court ground, illuminating our feet as though in knee-deep water. Sometimes we could barely see the ball until it came shooting out through the dark. Already we talked about me becoming world champion. Once I found that belief, I wrapped it up in my mind like treasure and put it away for later—for when I was free.
Mist rose, insects buzzed all around us; I could hear their pulsing chorus as we played. After a long match, we lay on the court, flat on our backs, staring up into the night and talking in whispers, the way we had as small children in the unspoiled river plains. Talking like two kids anywhere. When I was down, which happened often, it was Taimur who took charge like a coach, made sure I never went under. In those days, I don’t think he let us go more than a week without taking me out to play.
“You must go to the training camp in Malaysia, Maria. Get out of here. Ayesha checked your travel permit. You played in the tournament in Kuala Lumpur, and the visa is still good. If you leave now, they will extend it by a whole month.”
“No chance.”
“We’ll find the money to get you there.”
“Where will you find it? I need a plane ticket, food, a room. It’s impossible.”
“Let us worry about that.”
On the way back in the car—middle hours between waking and sleeping—I lowered the back window. As I’d so often seen my father do in traffic jams along the mountain passes, I let my hand rest along the warped frame. Cool wind blew the sweat off my forearm. Streetlights all out, I felt the heat rise and leave my skin. Taimur glanced back at me, said nothing. It was a brazen act, but I ignored him, ignored reality. On the cool, steady gusts, I could smell rain, saw flashes of summer lightning heat up the blackness. All day, a sea of roiling cloud overhead had churned to deepening grays, and I said something to Taimur about how there wouldn’t be a bomb if there was a good storm.
Hands gripping the wheel, knuckles all bone, he simply nodded. I looked out again and then down. A mosquito sat on my arm. Sitting back, I just watched it for a moment, tiny tentacle boring into my skin, drinking. Finally, I reached over and swatted. When I pulled my hand away, my forearm was streaked with blood.
Days later, Taimur took the bus with me to the airport in Islamabad, with an envelope marked “Kuala Lumpur,” full of rupees, tucked inside the pocket along my waistband. It was just enough to get me there and home again. After coming back from those secret courts with Taimur, I’d found the money sitting on my mattress wrapped in paper, a happy-face sticker holding down the seam. Between them, my parents had been scraping for weeks to come up with the money in time. I couldn’t say no. I’d purchase the ticket on standby at the very last moment. My father had found a room for me in the home of a Hindu family who had an apartment across the street from the training facility. Next to me on the bus, Taimur kept his attention up the aisle while I slept the journey away, head against the window, asphalt rushing under the wheels in a dizzying blur. Hood halfway over my face, I cocooned myself in a tracksuit, felt my own breath beat against my tired skin. There was a steady pain behind my tired eyes. Every inch of me felt bruised. The traffic was slow, and I chugged water whenever I woke up, usually with a start. Then I’d look around, see the domes of slumbering heads propped against the seats in front of us; rain hitting the glass; wipers at the front beating back and forth slowly. Several times, Taimur turned and asked if I was all right. I told him I just needed sleep and would get plenty on the plane.
A Different Kind of Daughter Page 30
