by Atia Abawi
My uncle’s eyebrows have not shifted at all. He stares at Latif. “Get off my land.” He then looks at me. “All of you! And never come back!”
“I’m sorry it had to come to this. I didn’t mean to upset you, and I’m sure you don’t mean to insult me.” Latif looks at my uncle but receives no reaction. “But, you see, we can’t leave. I have a funny feeling you are hiding your son inside your home. Meaning we need to take a look around.”
Latif snaps his finger at one of his men. The man rifles through a bag before running to Latif and handing him a pair of handcuffs. Two other thugs grab my uncle throw him against the wooden donkey pole. They wrap his arms around the wood, and Latif cuffs him.
“Rashid, don’t you let them dishonor us and our women!” my uncle yells at me. Although clearly they have already dishonored my uncle and our entire tribe for how they have just treated him. But even my uncle knows what matters right now is the women.
I run up to Latif. “Please don’t do this. Our women are in there. It’s clear Samiullah isn’t here. Please!”
“How do I know he’s not in there? It sounds like this khan here is protecting his son. We are forced to go in there now,” Latif says. There is something in his eyes that unnerves me. I don’t want him near my aunts and cousins.
“Let me do it. I’ll search for him in there. We can’t have strange men in our home. Our women are in there.”
“You think I’m going to trust you?” he snorts. “I barely know you. And you proved your weakness when you couldn’t kill that stupid little kafir baby. I’ll allow you to come with us, but that’s all I’m giving you. Or you can stay here with your dear uncle.” He kicks dirt in my uncle’s direction.
I’m ashamed even to look at him. I keep my eyes on Latif and agree to his offer.
“Rashid!” my uncle screams in vain as I lead the men into our home. I’ve never felt this low in my life. I never thought I would be leading a group of strange men into my family’s home, where our women are sitting not properly draped.
The thought of these men looking at my women makes me feel dirty. It will pollute them to be seen by strange men. As we walk through the main gate and into the courtyard, I see two of my aunts and three of my female cousins standing, as if they’ve been trying to figure out what’s going on. As soon as they see us, they start to panic and quickly cover their faces. They run into the closest room, the room with the tandoor. Latif giggles, a high-pitched noise that sets my teeth on edge.
Soon my Gul Bashro’s voice comes from inside the mud room they ran to. “Rashid! Who are these people?” she is yelling. Then my male cousins and uncles come out of various rooms with looks of murder in their eyes, but they stop in their tracks as Latif’s men raise their weapons.
“Please don’t be afraid. I am the one they call Mullah Latif, and I’m here in search of your nephew and son Samiullah.” Latif looks around the grassy courtyard, empty of people but full of our roosters and chickens. He looks at the men standing to the side, still in attack-ready positions but frozen because of the weapons pointed in their direction. Latif holds his heart and bows to them in greeting. The men don’t return the greeting; they are waiting for their moment to pounce. “We apologize for coming in like this, but it’s necessary. We ask that you all come out to the grass so we can search the home.”
We wait in silence, and right when I think no one is ever going to move, Samiullah’s mother, my dear Gul Bibi, steps out of the room the other ladies ran into. Her face is partly covered by a white head scarf bordered with lace. The white makes the purple in her top pop out. It’s the first thing I see until I notice the rage in her eyes. “What do you want with my zoy?” She comes closer until she is face-to-face with both of us.
“Asalaam aleykum,” Latif says to my aunt, but his greeting is not reciprocated. Gul Bibi makes it clear she wants nothing to do with him . . . or us. “We just need to talk to your son, dear auntie.”
“I’m not your aunt. You!” She directs her attention to me now. “What kind of man are you, bringing strangers into our home, exposing your cousins and aunts? What is wrong with you?” She slaps the side of my head. The impact stings my ear. I can hear the blood rushing on the inside of my skin. “Have we not raised you to be a man? It seems as though we raised a donkey!” She continues to slap me. This makes Latif chuckle. “Is this funny to you? Do you have no honor? No honorable Pashtun man would walk into a stranger’s home like this.” It looks as though my aunt is about to slap him as well, but she holds back. This doesn’t stop Latif from putting his arms up in preparation to block any incoming assault. I have no doubt this isn’t the first time he has invaded someone’s home, but I think this is the first time he has been confronted by a woman in the home. He looks shaken.
“Our intention is to find your son so we can talk to him. We are here to help him . . . to help you,” he says as tries to regain his composure.
“We don’t want your help. Leave us alone and leave my son alone. Go!” She says turning around and throwing her hand up in the air. “Go now!”
Latif just looks at me as if I can fix this. And that’s when I realize this is my chance to make myself look strong in front of Latif and his men again. I can’t fix the way I’ve dishonored my family, but I can fix how I appear to Latif’s men. Besides, I am Qadir’s son, my aunt’s dear brother’s child. She will forgive me later.
“My dear auntie, let’s not drag this out. Let them quickly search the house and then they’ll leave.” My aunt turns around with bulging eyes and makes her way back to me. I hold my head high and try not to show fear. Preparing for more slaps, I tense every muscle in my body. She may be a little old lady, but her bony hands are like sharp knives when they strike.
“You are a shame to your dead parents!” she says with her deep green eyes flashing—eyes like Sami’s, like my father’s. I take a step back. It feels as though I’ve been hit, but she hasn’t laid a finger on me. “If your father knew what you would become—selling out your own family, spending time with thugs, giving your cousin to these dogs—he would have asked his murderers to kill you along with him!” All I can do is stare at her in silence as I try to catch my breath. She has never said a harsh word to me in my life. And now this. I want to respond, but I can’t. How can I speak if I’ve forgotten how to breathe?
I hear her call the families to come out of their rooms and into the courtyard. There is a steady stream of children and men who come out first. The women, in their colorful clothes, follow. Some are holding their scarves to their faces using both hands; others are holding their infants in one while covering themselves with the other. As they all make their way out, I can feel the stares, but I can’t focus. Their faces are blocked by flashes of my family’s murder. I hear my father’s screams, I see my mother lying on the ground, I see my baby sister’s lifeless body in my mother’s dead arms, and suddenly the scenery changes, and I see Mohammad with his baby Afifa.
I feel myself fall back onto the dirt floor. The world around me has turned hazy. I see bodies moving. I see men throwing pillows and sheets through windows and doors. I see plastic jugs falling from the roof as Latif’s men run up to the top of the house. I hear the children and the women crying. I hear the men in my family screaming. But I can’t move. The voices are all muffled; nothing is comprehensible. The only thing that’s as clear as freshly wiped glass is my father’s desperate voice screaming for his murderers to spare us, his son, his daughter, his wife.
“Rashid! Rashid!” I think it’s my father calling me, until I feel a slap on my face and I see Azizullah. “Come on, Rashid, we’re done here. Let’s go.” I’m unaware of how much time has passed and what has happened, but I’ve regained my vision and see what we have left behind. The house looks like it has been looted, with clothes and furniture scattered throughout the courtyard. Some of the window screens have been ripped from their frames to make way for everything Latif’s men
were flinging out.
“I hope you don’t mind that we took some items for the cause.” Azizullah smirks as he shows me a bag full of batteries, a flashlight and a small radio—my family’s only radio. I don’t even look at them as I turn to leave, but I can hear my great-uncle Jaan Baba’s weak voice trying to yell.
“You are dead to us, dead!” His screams are shrill. “You have brought more shame to us than your cousin. Don’t ever come back.”
I hear women wailing in the background, and I turn to see their faces. And that’s when I find her. My beautiful cousin Nur, dressed in a ruby-red dress with a green head scarf to match her eyes, holding on to one of the children. She is stunning, even when her eyes are downcast, dripping tears.
I notice that tears are also streaming down my face. I wipe them away, turning my back on my family, and walk out of my home.
Sami will pay for ripping me away from my loved ones.
Twenty-two
RASHID
I splash the river water on my face, feeling the icy burn on my parched skin. The day is hot, but my body cannot stop shivering. Just days ago, I was at the same river with one of Latif’s men, strapping my village’s water to the motorbike as we rode by, and today I’m wondering if I can ever show my face in this village again. My head races with thoughts of this morning’s events. First at the farmer’s house and then at my own. I hear my aunt’s words, and I hear Mohammad’s screams. Flashes of my own parents’ voices echo through my brain. I hold my hands to my ears, turning my head so the other men don’t see the struggle I’m having with myself, hoping if I squeeze my head hard enough, the sounds will stop.
I feel a push on my back and instinctively swing my hand around in order to hit whoever it is. But I miss.
“Calm down!” Zaman says, catching my hand. “Are you okay?” I barely know Zaman, but he seems different from the louder men in Latif’s gang. I noticed he was one of the few who wasn’t laughing when Latif killed Fatima’s sister.
“I’m fine,” I say, looking away, not wanting to make eye contact with any of them. Partly out of anger and partly out of embarrassment.
“You’re not okay. But you need to act stronger, or they will bother you too,” Zaman says.
“What’s it to you?” I snap. I don’t know this guy, and I don’t like that he is poking his nose in my business.
“I don’t care what happens to you!” Zaman says through gritted teeth. “I just don’t want to deal with any more crazy nonsense today. So get up and act like a man so they don’t find a reason to treat you like a boy!”
I get up from my squatting position and look over to the men farther down the river. Some are lounging on the rocks, soaking in the sun’s rays, others are drinking and bathing their feet in the ice-cold water. Latif is one of the men lying on the rocks and laughing. I can feel my hands start to clench into tight fists, and I dig my nails into my skin. He violated my family!
“Let it go,” Zaman says as if he had just read my mind. “There is nothing you can do to fix it now. Just let it go.”
I look at Zaman puzzled. “What do you mean, ‘let it go’? I have nothing now!”
“Going after him isn’t going to change anything.” Zaman glances at Latif.
“I suppose you would kill me if I went after him?” I now have the strongest urge to tackle Zaman but I just stare at him.
“I couldn’t care less if he were killed,” Zaman says.
I am stunned.
“Stick your eyes back into your head.” Zaman shakes his head at me. “You can’t be surprised that not everyone is impressed by that fraud.”
“But . . . then . . . why . . .” I try to get a sentence out, but I’m too confused by Zaman’s words to complete it.
“Look, the scoundrel helps me earn some money that I can give back to my family,” he says before I can finish my sentence. “I don’t like what I do, but at least I can give my parents and siblings enough money to keep them fed. I have no choice.”
“And you’re okay with destroying families and killing children?” I feel the bile come up in my throat as I remember the death of that little baby girl today.
“No, I’m not. But I would rather have someone else’s family destroyed than my own. It’s survival,” Zaman says without any shame. “What did you think would happen when you complained about your family to a thug like that?” His words make my insides sink. We both look at Latif, who is now laughing at one of the men who can’t last ten seconds with his feet in the water because of the cold.
“But . . . I thought it would be . . . I thought . . .” I struggle to get my words out as Zaman grabs a cigarette and sticks it in his mouth. “I thought it would be done according to proper Islamic law.” My words send him into grunts of laughter.
“Do you really think that man knows anything about Islamic law?” Latif has grown bored of the jackass in the water and is now fixing his hair in the reflection of his sunglasses. Zaman pulls out a match and lights his cigarette. “The only reason he has authority in our villages is because his uncle is a big-time warlord in the capital of our province. He has ties with some crooks in Kabul and some Afghans hiding across the border in Pakistan. They’re all scum, but they’re the scum that keeps me fed—even if they are stealing it from someone else’s plate.” Zaman blows out smoke and looks down again. “They talk about Pashtun this and Pashtun that—did you know we have Tajiks and Uzbeks in this group? Rumor has it Latif’s mother was from Panjshir. Anyone who is hungry for money or blood, or both. This is our Afghanistan,” he says, shaking his head. “How did you get stuck with us, anyway? It didn’t look like your family needed the money.”
I wonder why Zaman is telling me all of this. It doesn’t seem like he’s the slightest bit scared of Latif. “The mullah at my madrassa told me that it would be good for me to meet with Latif and join his men. He said they were Taliban fighters who will help rid our country of the infidels and bring back an Islamic state. So I started spending time with them in the last few months with permission of our mullah.”
“It wasn’t Mullah Rafi, was it?” Zaman snorts again, this time letting out smoke from his nose and mouth.
“Yes, do you know him?” I ask.
“That’s Latif’s brother. They’re both jackasses,” Zaman says, coughing out a chuckle. “They’re all donkeys with power—I don’t think the real Taliban would even accept them.”
“But Mullah Rafi was a wise man who taught us so much about what’s ailing our country!” I feel heated by the fact that he would call a religious scholar a donkey.
“He is a hypocrite, and so are you if you believe in Islam and believe in him at the same time.” Zaman blows smoke in my direction.
“How dare you—” I start, but he interrupts me.
“I dare to say this because he rapes children, sends them off on suicide missions and tells them they will survive all because they are wearing a talisman,” Zaman says with fierce eyes. “And if you think they are great men, you should be prepared to be their next mule.” Zaman takes a drag from his cigarette. “Looks like he didn’t play with you. You should be thanking God for that every day. Maybe he thought you were too ugly.” Zaman snorts before taking another drag.
Could he be telling the truth? Did Mullah Rafi violate his power with children? No, it can’t be true. But why would Zaman lie to me?
“Hey! You two! Come here!” Our conversation is interrupted by a goon waving us over to Latif. Zaman throws his cigarette to the ground and steps on it before walking over.
“What were you guys doing over there? Giving each other some ass?” Latif says. His followers laugh. That sick son of a bitch! I’m about to give him a piece of my mind, but Zaman answers first.
“We were taking a leak. We wanted to piss upstream so it went in all of your mouths.”
The men stop laughing and start wiping their mouths and smelling
their hands. Latif laughs at the retort and looks back at me. “So, where are they?” he asks.
“Sami and the girl?” I look at him. “I don’t know. They must have run away together.” I feel my anger boiling again at the thought of my snake of a cousin, whom my family has chosen over me.
“Yes, I know that,” Latif says, “but we need to figure out where they are. Who would they go to for help? Where do they have more family? What members of your tribe would take them in? Do they have friends who would shelter them?”
Family. Tribe. Friends. Is this animal serious? Does he think I would give him the locations of more of the people I know so I can be shamed even further than I already have been?
“I don’t think he would be able to take a girl to any family members or tribesmen. They wouldn’t allow it,” I say quickly.
“Then where else?” Latif’s voice sounds agitated. “Has he lived anywhere else besides this village and the madrassa? Does he know other places?”
“He traveled a lot with his father before we became students at the madrassa, but the people he saw were all people who knew his father. They would never help him,” I say. They would turn him away, if not shoot him on the spot for disgracing our people. I consider our friends at the madrassa, wondering if any of them would help him, but I can’t think of one person who would even dare. Then I remember that when Sami left the school, he didn’t come straight home. He spent a month with that old mullah a few villages over before making his way back to our tribe. Mullah Sarwar! That’s his name!
I look at Latif, who is still staring at me. And I wonder if I should share this information with the animal who is intent on killing my cousin and his whore or if I should keep it to myself and figure out my own punishment for them.
