Disclaimer: All right belong to Tony Grounds and the BBC
Quaseem tells me that everything will be well when we get to England, that I will be able to go to University and carry on with my plan to be a teacher and to then come back home and teach girls just like I was, but I am very, very nervous. I have studied the photographs of Molly and her children on the computer, but I barely remember her, I have these kind of disconnected pictures in my head of a girl, I presume it was her, visiting me in my school and I think she was wearing something bright and she had no head covering, but I'm not sure, and she was smiling and she hugged me, but I can't quite remember. Apart from that, I have these very frightening memories of being at home in a village with my parents and my brother. I remember that there were foreign soldiers there as well and that Molly was one of them, and that my father hated them all, but especially her, he kept saying that she was a disgrace to women.
I don't know whether my memories of her face are real or it's that I know what she looks like because I have seen her in photos, or that Quaseem has told me so many stories of her, but I do remember how kind she was to me. She used to chat with me when I saw her, played sang chill bassi with me and gave me pens and sweets and said I could be her soul sister and I remember that it made me very unhappy that my father insisted that I spy on her and the rest of the soldiers. He wouldn't let me go to school, he said girls didn't need an education and anyway I was promised to some religious leader.
He and my brother used to shout a lot about how the soldiers, especially Molly, were the tools of the Americans who had come to our country to kill us and wreck our way of life and they would have long meetings with very scary men who came to the house late at night, my father said they were prayer meetings but I don't think they were. It was during one of these meetings that I overheard them planning a raid on the mountain check point and my father hit me for listening to their conversation. Molly treated the cut on my lip the next day; I still have the scar, so I told her all about it. I was a child, I didn't realise I was betraying anyone, I heard them planning to kill people and I just didn't want my friend to get hurt, she was kind to me.
My father and brother were so angry with me when they found out what I'd done, I didn't tell them, I don't know who did, that they were screaming at me and threatening me and saying I would have to pay for betraying them. My mother tried to say something, but my father hit her across her mouth, so she went into the corner and hunched over, covering her face and weeping but she didn't do anything to protect me.
They punished me by putting this thing round me with bombs in it and telling me that I had to go and talk to the female soldier and then they would blow us both up, and in that way I would atone to Allah for my sins. I remember walking into the market square and everyone moving away from me and the soldiers, especially the tall one Quaseem calls Captain, all yelling at me and I remember Molly ignoring them as they shouted at her as she walked right up to me and held my hands and talked to me while we waited for someone to come and help. I know what the captain looks like because he is married to Molly now and is the father of her children and I have seen him in the photos. He looks nice.
When the bombs had been taken off me these people grabbed me and put me in a truck and then the bombs blew up but I don't think anyone was hurt. They took me to a school and I was very scared at first, but then it was okay for a while and then something happened, I don't know what, and they moved me to another school that had armed guards on the gates and I felt safe there. That was where the girl I think was Molly visited me. I stayed there for more than 7 years and was very happy, even when the Americans moved out of Kabul and people got scared that the Taliban would be back, it didn't really affect me that much. The whole time I was there Quaseem used to visit and bring me things and tell me that once I had finished school I could go and live in his apartment as a sort of daughter or niece while we sorted out my entry to University. Quaseem told me recently that Molly is the one who paid for my education and keep, that even though she had very little money she gave all she had to him to look after me. I can't help wondering why someone would do that for a child who was a stranger, but he says that she is simply the kindest and most generous person he knows.
I don't know what happened to my father, or my mother for that matter, but I know that my brother is Taliban and is in hiding in Pakistan and I don't want to see him, the thought of him still scares me, so I have no-one but Quaseem. He is a lovely man; I wish he were my real father. We couldn't get me into University here, it is still incredibly difficult to be a woman and to progress so Quaseem started looking for a way for us to leave Afghanistan and go abroad to study and hopefully make a new life until I am ready to come home as an experienced teacher. We could probably have done it easily if he was prepared to do it illegally and pay out thousands of dollars on the black market, but Quaseem wouldn't do that, so it has taken a very long time to get to where we are today which is just about to board a plane for England and Molly.
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It was a very long time on the plane, quite exciting to start with but then very boring, especially when it was dark, although I got to watch a film that is not available at home. I tried to sleep but I am anxious about what will happen when we get there, whether or not there will be someone to meet us and if not, how we will find Molly's house. Quaseem is lucky, he slept for a great deal of the time and when he was awake he was relaxed, kept telling me not to worry, it will all be fine, that I should just wait and see and that Molly will be longing to see me.
The airport was absolutely full of people rushing here and there and there were a lot of Muslim women wearing burkas, so it was a bit like a home from home, except that there were even more dressed in a way that would be seen as completely immodest at home. I wonder what it feels like to be out in public in clothes that show off your legs and arms and with your head uncovered and your hair all loose. The Captain, Quaseem is still calling him that even though Molly told us he's not a captain any more, was waiting for us and I was right in my memory, he is very tall. They seemed really pleased to see each other, slapping each other's backs and even hugging briefly. I think the captain must have been injured at some point because Quaseem kept saying how well he looked and how wonderfully he'd recovered and the captain said "You can thank my wife for that" so Molly must have nursed him, I remember they called her a medic.
The drive to Molly's house was beautiful, nothing like Afghanistan, they must have found it really strange in my country, so dissimilar to here and so hot and dusty. The houses in their villages look completely different to the white square ones at home, these are nearly all built of brick and are two stories and have gardens in front of them with grass and trees and flowers, and there are so many cars. You can see that there is lots of rain here because everywhere is very green, although the captain says it has been a hot summer and the grass looks thirsty which I thought was quite funny.
Molly was waiting for us outside her house with her beautiful children and she looked as nervous as I felt. She ran to hug Quaseem and he hugged her back, they are obviously very fond of each other even though they haven't seen each other for years. She is very tiny, I don't remember that, I am taller than her now and because it was a nice warm afternoon she was wearing a T-shirt and shorts showing all her legs with her hair all loose and shiny in the sun and it looked wrong, she should have been wearing army camouflage. She looked at me then burst out crying and said my name and ran to hug me as well, which made me cry as I said her name. I do remember her and I remember things about her, the camouflage, how kind she was, her smile and the way she made me feel.
Quaseem and I greeted their beautiful children who were wearing swimming costumes, except for the smallest girl who was wearing nothing at all, not even underwear. She seemed to get all shy and went and clung onto her father's leg so he bent down and picked her up and hugged her, how lucky she is to have a father that does that to a tiny naked little girl, that would not happen in my country, well only behind closed doors, because even a little girl that small without proper clothes would be seen as something disgraceful, very immodest. Molly's daughters look very like her, except that they have big brown eyes, hers are green like mine, and all three of them have dark brown curly hair like their father; the little boy looks just like him.
They have a beautiful home and I have a lovely room with its own bathroom which Molly has stocked with luxuries you can't get at home, well only if you can afford the black market, and we spent the whole afternoon laughing and talking about my school and her children and the flight and what I want to do next and we looked on the computer to see what courses I can do and where the Universities are. She said how wonderful my English is and how she once tried to teach me some good old east end slang and how I speak better English than she does now, and she said that she will help me look properly tomorrow and then I can get on with applying for a student visa. We did not talk about what happened that day in the market square or my father and apart from talking about teaching me some English, we didn't talk about anything to do with the time she spent near my village as a soldier.
We went to bed early last night, I was very tired so I slept quite well although I didn't know where I was when I woke this morning. I was very surprised that the captain cooked the dinner last night, because that is definitely a woman's job, but Molly laughed and said that he is better at it than she is and he didn't seem to mind at all, I am beginning to think that I am going to find a lot of things very strange here. It is raining this morning and the children are being very noisy running around all over the place and the captain is complaining that he was going to cut the grass so Molly told him to shut up moaning, he was being a pain, and he laughed at her then grabbed her and kissed her, it is very obvious that they love each other and their children very much.
Quaseem was asking the captain about his coffee, apparently it is the same as he used to drink when they knew each other all those years ago in Afghanistan, so the captain made one for him and Molly said not to bring it anywhere near her as the smell made her feel sick. He apologised and she came and sat with me at the kitchen table and confided that they are expecting another baby but haven't told people yet, and the captain came over and kissed the top of her head.
I wonder what it's like to have a child, or even to love a man enough to want to be with him and have his children, I doubt that I will ever find out. I know that my father once arranged a marriage for me, but I was just a child and I wouldn't have met the man until our wedding day, so I was glad it didn't happen, but that is the reality for most girls from rural Afghanistan. I have no real male relatives to introduce me to people and had no other way of meeting anyone to form any sort of friendship, let alone marry and I have never spoken to an adult man, apart from Quaseem and now the captain, and he makes me feel very shy. I have no idea whether this will change when I am at University here. I don't understand what love feels like and the thought scares me.
Author's notes: This is obviously something completely new for me, and is not the new story I am working on but it kept bugging at me until I sat down and wrote it. At the moment it is a one-shot about Bashira, but I may continue it into her settling down period, I haven't decided yet. Please review for me.