"CHAPTER TWO- Part B: The Story Of The Mud-brick Walls"
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A/N: This chapter contains violence of a non-graphic nature and does include concepts and issues that some readers may find disturbing. This portrayal of Communist Afghanistan is not intended to degrade Afghans, nor does it represent the beliefs/behaviours of the majority of Afghans during this time. I am perturbed by any sought of violence towards children and if readers find this distressing, this chapter does contain very mild references to such acts.
I am unaware of any unlawful violence being undertaken by the Afghan Army of this time and remind the readers that this is a fictional piece of work, and while most of the facts contained within are historically accurate, poetic license and implementation of fictional plots does of course occur in this story.
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Hashim al-Farrah's FORT
AYTAQ-I-SITUN, AFGHANISTAN
1405 HOURS ZULU
The room was adorned with carpets, lots of carpets. There were large ones, small ones, red ones, blue ones, deep green ones, soft ones, rough ones, finished ones, old ones, new ones and half-woven ones. Every colour of the rainbow, every combination of tiny knots was catered for in this large collection of carpets.
In the middle of the room sat three women, all positioned around an unfinished design in a circle. In the still-shadowy corners of the room, two young children played: a boy, named Mazin, and a girl, Farrah. The two children laughed as they danced in and out of the hanging rugs, pouncing on each other, sneaking up behind one another and trying to evade the other. The game was light-hearted and blessed with all the innocence of childhood.
The three women did not smile. They did not laugh. They barely spoke. Each was rapt in their own task, their own futures, their own pasts, their own memories and their own plans. Each had grown from the same laughing creature as Farrah: a bright-eyed, smiling young girl with her head covered by a colourful scarf and her head full of fairytales and dreams. One of the women, Na'ima, sighed. She had been distracted from her pain-staking work for long enough to observe her son play with this young girl, and the reaction was an overwhelming yearning to be that young again, for life to be that simple.
But life was not that simple.
These three women were Afghans of the first generation to mature since Soviet rule had commenced in 1979. Na'ima had been 13 when the Russians had first invaded. The occupation had come just months after she had begun to observe purdah. Her father had been an avid supporter of Hafizullah Amin's administration. He had been killed along with his leader on December 27th, 1979. Na'ima and her family had never recovered. Her mother had no way of earning money to feed the family of five. Na'ima was the oldest surviving child. She had four brothers, the oldest of whom was now dead, and three young brothers who were far too young to work. Her younger sister was only two years old at the time. Na'ima had been sent to live with her uncle along with her youngest brother. She had been betrothed to her cousin from birth and though she was old enough to marry, it was her mother's wish that she remain unmarried until she was 15. During the two years she resided with her uncle, she nearly single-handedly raised her younger brother. It was generally accepted among the women of the household that he was her son. At 15 she had been due to marry her cousin. It was the spring of 1981 and a traditional Afghan wedding had been planned. Her cousin had gone into town with her uncle before their wedding. Both men were killed in a gali in the local bazaar in a dispute between the People's Democratic Party and Banner supporters. During her fifteen years, Na'ima's life had been destroyed twice by the Soviets. Her hate for the Russians deepened.
Na'ima was finally married at eighteen. Her husband was a second cousin who had become besotted with her after several visits. She watched their third son play now, nine years after her marriage, and pressed her lips together in a kind of grim smile. This boy's father had also been killed in the civil war that raged within her divided country. He had been drafted to serve in the Afghan Army. A proud supporter and instigating member of the Mujahidin, he had deserted at the first opportunity. She still remembered it well. He had come to their door very late at night, well after midnight. Na'ima had been afraid to open the door for him. When she finally moved the wooden slab, it revealed her husband standing before her, the moonlight behind him making him a mere silhouette to her eyes. Stunned, she had stepped aside and allowed him to enter the house without a word. His kiss had surprised her. His heated embrace had shocked her. These were the pleas of a desperate man who knew his days were limited. He had bedded with her that night. The memories of the night were hazy. It was the morning that Na'ima recalled vividly, every slight movement, every small sound, every scent; every grotesque sight was etched and engraved in her mind. They had come when it was still early. He had told her to dress and answer the door. She had. The men had gestured to the uniforms, and without a word, pushed past her and into the house. Her first child was standing in the doorway; her husband was sitting at the table. A burst of fire from an AK-47 and her husband's bloody face slumped into the tabletop. Her son had screamed. A stray bullet to the wall above his head sent him running out of the room, yelling for his mother. Na'ima had been unable to move, tears coursing down her cheeks and her knees unable to support her weight. She had dropped to the floor and lay without moving until the men were gone and her husband had been removed and her kitchen was clean of all evidence and her son came to ask her if she was all right. She had not been all right, but she had assured the child everything would be fine. In the next room, a baby had started to cry.
This was the last time Na'ima's life would know the horrors of Communist Afghanistan, but the lessons had been learnt. When she bore her third child, the last of her husband's offspring, she had sworn with undisguisable bitterness that he would be the one to rid her country of the oppressive Russian nightmare. As she watched Mazin play with his young childhood friend she prayed the future would hold more promising times for her son.
Parvin sitting beside her was named after the Pleiades. Many nights, Parvin had sat under the star-lit sky, wrapped in her chador and wondered why. Why was she so small in a world so big? Growing up in a nation ruled by men she had never understood her place in society. Her father had often shouted at her, told her she would never find a decent Muslim husband, and that she was a not a faithful and obedient daughter. She had been a child, and she just wanted an answer to her question. Parvin had always been intelligent, she had outranked the boys in many of her classes, benefiting from an education. When she was 19, her father had forced her into marriage. Her husband was a good and honourable man. They had several wonderful children. That was before the invasion. After, two of her children, both her sons, were left dead. Her husband joined the resistance, the desire to avenge the death of his sons overcoming his sanity. Parvin was left with two daughters, one now married and the other betrothed. Her only surviving offspring, and despite her hopes and wishes for them, she knew they would live the same life as she had, and they would struggle for their freedom as she had and they would pray for the mercy of Allah to take them from their harsh and rugged land before their lives were through. She knew this and secretly, when she was alone and no one was around, she prayed that it had been her daughters taken by the Russians, not her sons. She thought these thoughts to be despicable for a mother, but could not help but think them nonetheless. Her sons would've grown into fine men and made a good name for themselves in their small town. Her daughters would spend their lives fighting.
Parvin sighed.
The men of her country often died in battle, but it was the women who died fighting. Years of supporting the men, years of praying for relief and comfort whichever way it may come and years of fighting for freedom for the chains that bound a woman of Afghanistan.
Yes, she did not wish that life upon her daughters.
The third woman was the youngest present. Barely twenty years old, Zareen was no stranger to the horrors her counterparts had endured. The daughter of a leader within the Mujahidin, she had grown up in Pakistan. At 18, she had been married to the son of a warlord within the local area in the hopes of an alliance being formed between the two families. At 19, she had given birth to her first child, a daughter. The child had been named Farrah, but her father had been displeased. He had been excited at the thought of his first descendant but immediately after her birth had been distant to her. Since the first news of Zareen's pregnancy he had always hoped for a son. Farrah had been a disappointment to him from the beginning.
He had soon ceased distancing himself from his young daughter, captivated by her chaste face and stunning beauty. He had instead blamed what was in his opinion an unfortunate act of nature on Zareen. He had either ignored or beaten his wife for many weeks. He claimed she was unable to bear a son, a silver blade in hand. She had begged and pleaded with him to give her another chance. He had agreed to this and brutally attempted to physically ensure this reality. Within months, Zareen had been pregnant again. Her second pregnancy had born twins: a daughter named Amani and a son, Sohrab. Zareen had entered the small nursery one summer afternoon to find Amani's throat slit, blood staining the white blanket the dead baby was wrapped in. She had screamed and rushed outside to find her husband grinning, Farrah on one knee and his son cradled in his arms. She had been unable to speak. Her husband had threatened her many times. If she spoke of the incident to anyone, she knew her fate would be identical to her baby's. He never threatened Farrah. His initial disappointment at her gender had been replaced by a deep-set affection. His daughter was his pride and joy. Now Zareen watched Farrah play with the son of her work-friend and wondered if this young boy would become a man like her husband. She shuddered at the thought.
As she observed the display of innocence before her she wondered how life would corrupt this young soul, transforming him from a guiltless boy into a harsh and unforgiving man. It was a cyclic lifestyle that did not end: the girls grew into women, married and bore children while the men died around them; the boys were tainted by their years and grew into men proud of their politics and trigger-happy with their Kalashinovs. Now they could play with little thought of the differences between them. In the coming years it would become apparent, and the young boy would distance himself from the young woman, at first out of traditional Islamic respect, but as the years wore on it would become disdain. He would become superior to her, she would grow quieter, more able to fade into her surroundings, to be invisible and he would not see her, the woman he once played with among the carpets. This was the future for these two children, a future always determined by gender, and it was bleak.
And yet, as the three women sat watching the children's game unfold before them, they wondered if they dared to hope. To hope that this might be the future of Afghanistan, that their war-torn country might know liberation at the hands of these innocent young faces and joy-filled laughter.
The walls watched, remembering this scene now as a completely different one
took place before them. The carpets were gone, the women were no longer weaving
and the children had disappeared.
The pilot lay still. He had not yet fully regained consciousness. He did not want to.
This story told by the walls was captivating.
He tried to recapture the essence of the image they had projected, but now wakefulness had gripped at his mind, he was unable to delve back into the past.
Closing his eyes, he heard the faint echo of childish laughter, but the naivety was gone. The happiness was now tainted by years of history.
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