Afghanistan Story

The welcome fragrance of freshly baked bread warms the air, making me recall the summer of my 14th year. I am transported once more to the kitchen of my uncle's compound on the Street With the Green Door, so-called because of our own huge wooden gate barring the inner courtyard from the dusty street. Later, when I had arrived in America, how I had marveled at the clever arrangement of streets and boulevards. I had never before seen such straight and well-planned thoroughfares, each with uniform placards to tell visitors that this was Scottsdale Road or that was Shea Boulevard.

I imagine that our family's cook and downstairs servant, Zhila, is once again stooped over her work – this time a wooden bowl filled with basmati rice from which she painstakingly removes small pebbles and twigs – all the while telling tales with her toothless grin. “Ai, Khoda,” she calls on Allah to witness the veracity of a particularly racy bit of gossip.

We are used to her stories, my sister Zora and myself. We share a sisterly wink or two with barely concealed smirks. Today we have been drafted to assist her in the kitchen in preparing a huge feast to celebrate Ede-e-sol-e-now the final evening of Ramadan. Zhila prattles on, tsk-tsking another one of her often-told stories of some long-dead miscreant – relative or friend of the family – who knows or cares? Zora and I have our own secret that we share only between ourselves; tonight we will spy on Ibrahim, the eldest unmarried son of the Noor family as they join the celebration. We giggle a little guiltily, because we are each of marriageable age and should not be thinking thoughts about so elligible a bachelor. We are ages 14 and 16, respectively and Ibrahim is old, very old -- perhaps 30. We shiver with...what? Excitement? Fear, perhaps?

Deafening thunder scatters my memories, which scamper like quail caught by surprise. Lightening spells out the Phoenix skyline in [i]bas[/i] relief – her amethyst mountains ringing an otherwise pan-flat series of monotonous, one-story buildings from which erupt a sad collection of three or four attempts at what some East Coaster might laughingly call sky scrapers.
Kabul had its storms, too, even greater than this one. And, if you looked in just the right direction, away from the cluster of 10- and 12-story buildings, you could become confused about which desert city this was. In fact, that very evening there was a midnight storm. The lightening’s gunpowder blaze had outlined a jagged cityscape then, though. On that night, thirty years ago in Afghanistan, you would not have seen neat, painted houses surrounded by sturdy palm trees. I recall the tank-pummeled walls to the palace and the sights and sounds of that night try to creep back – the wail of an orphan; the smell of dust and blood and smoke; the sight of a human head severed very recently from the body rolling down the incline onto the street in front of me. A ghastly, unseeing look of horror stares at the rocky closeness of the road’s surface, his longhi-turban still ludicrously intact.
[s]
Thirty years later,I still blush with shame to remember my hysterical laughter that seemed to echo up into the Akbar-e-Khan mountains that began just to the West of the palace. So inappropriate…so uncontrollable was my single shrill outburst that I’m sure my sister heard it only as a choking scream. But in my heart, it is my secret betrayal of Allah’s commands to honor the spirit of one already in the arms of Paradise.
[s]
I will myself to return to the present. What could be more peaceful than the now faint lightening in the desert, the sequential tabla-like drumbeats of raindrops on a metal roof, the acrid scent of dust-swollen raindrops? I have learned to go and seek some work for my hands, some other occupation for my mind, to keep my spirit occupied in this present, tranquil world. My life is once more unthreatened, but my dreams are no longer those of the carefree, unmarried girl I once was.
[s]
I rythmically knead a lump of dough. I have made a relatively simple mixture of very fine white flour, salt, oil, water and yeast. Once the dough rises, I will smooth it out on a greased cookie sheet, spread it with a coating of yogurt and sesame seeds and toast it in a very hot oven, tandoori-style. But for now, the yeast has not yet come alive within the body of my dough. I envision the tiny organisms busily exhaling and blowing -- huffing and puffing -- upon the walls their cells. Their futures are sealed within those cells, just as Khoda-jan -- the Lord God -- has declared to each of his children their unyielding kismet.

On that stormy, Kabul night I had been like an invisible speck of yeast hidden beneath my veil. Were Muslim women not invisible to many in those days...even now? How else could I have survived that night? While shots clacked and pinged around us -- rapid-fire sprays accented by the phunking sound of heavier artillery -- Zora and I made our way back to the Street With the Green Door.

When edged our way along, dashing and darting from shadow to shadow along alleyways to avoid the main streets. Smoke all but obscured the green door and, indeed, the entire compound, from view as we drew near. Alarmed, I broke away from the shadow of a wall and began to run heedlessly. Surely, I was only moments away from the door and safety, I thought.

"Allah-e Rahman e Rahim," I cried to God repeatedly. "Oh, spare my family, God most merciful and powerful." Now I was running in the street that was ordinarily so boisterous and full, but was now all but deserted. I remember wondering what was happening one minute and the next, lying on my back and wondering at the stars peeping through the billows of smoke overhead. I had been struck by a bullet in my left shoulder. It was a clean wound, as the doctor later described it. But at the time, I was filled with fear that I might be mortally wounded.

And now, amidst the comforting items in my kitchen in Phoenix, I can still envision the horror of that feeling. I pause in mid-motion as I wash the gluten and debris from the finest of Basmati.

I thought back to that turning point, which occured in one catachlysmic day in Kabul. That had been the best and worst day of my life. For I later learned that on that day, the rebels beat my dear Uncle Mohammad Shawkaar and threw him into that horrendous jail, the Pul-e-Charki. Uncle Mohammad was married to my own, dead mother's sister, Zahera. The two had taken me into their home at age five, after my parents had been killed in an automobile accident. And now, he was being imprisoned without trial or voice, possibly murdered, certainly tortured, while his wife Zahera could only agonize and wonder at his fate for many months to follow.

Yet, on this same day, I met the only man in the entire world that I would ever love, in the way that a woman loves a man. My Richard, my American hero, was a journalist covering the 1976?? overthrow of President Daud by the Communist rebels. I called him my American hero, because at the time, Americans were very much in danger, themselves, in Afghanistan. There were too many factions, too many groups fighting for power. America could never understand the mind-set of the Middle-East, and insisted on demonstrating allegiance to one side or another in its stubbornly Western way. Yet, primary on my mind that day was, of course, the fact that I had been shot.

"Lilah, Lilah-jan," my sister's voice called my name, adding the endearment, "jan," as is the Afghan custom.

I wondered at the smoothness of her tones, the strength and height of her pitch, which would have been the envy of many an Indian actress. Through my struggle to find a lucid thought, something not clouded behind a filmy layer of confusion, only her voice and a certain pinpoint of pain were clear. Tears welled up in my eyes and I tried to blink them away. This only made the vague outlines of matter around me seem fuzzier and less distinct.

Ah, I thought, it's better to close my eyes entirely and to relax. Thus saying, I felt as though part of myself had floated above the street, swaying ever so gently in the evening breeze. I could look down on myself, lying there on the rock-strewn street. Yes, that was me, I thought. I was lying there in my pink pajama-like khameez that I had embroidered myself. What a shame that now there was a hole and a spreading red stain on one of the shoulders. But fortunately, I thought, I could save most of the embroidery work from the borders of the garment.

And my hair, I thought in dismay. Amah Zahera-jan would be dismayed that my thick unruly curls had escaped from my modest veil, which was now nowhere to be seen.

I opened my eyes. Ai, Khoda, I muttered, these rocks are as hot as a pot of rice, even though the sun is gone. I tried to get up or at least roll my body away from the center of the street which had absorbed the horrendous heat of the summer day. It was no use, my body refused to budge while each attempt at movement sent the pain escalating from my wound.

I blinked several times and see stars beginning to glint through the swirls of gritty clouds that tried to choke out the sky. There was my sister, Zora. Tears were running down her cheeks in grimy rivulets as she knelt beside me in the street. "Ah, Lilah-jan-e-man," she sniffled, almost hysterically. "you're not dead. Ah, shukria Khoda, you're alive."

I smiled at her grimly, gritting my teeth against the pain. My dear, sweet sister, I thought. Just then, the ground began to tremble. Zora felt it, too, I could see the fear register in her eyes. I thought, "All of this shooting and war and pain. Surely God is not sending us an earthquake, too?"

But the shaking increased as we could look down the street at a slowly approaching armada of Russian tanks. Just then a male voice spoke in English, of all things. "English!" I thought. And whatever makes the human mind seek the simplest level when under stress left me only with the thought that now I can practice my English.

Thanks to Uncle Mohammad's position in the Afghan national government, I had been allowed to attend girls' school in the American-run Agency for International Development, or AID. I blinked up at this new entrant onto the scene. What I saw was a face that, to me, bore movie-star-quality good looks.

Richard had Irish-American boisterous good looks. His broad, open face with sky-blue eyes set far apart, was the opposite of the lean, dark, craggy men of my native country. To an impressionable teen like me, he was the very person of James Bond, himself -- so much more impressive than my skinny and almost effeminately simpish cousins, the only boys I knew at that time.

I fell in love instantly, immediately and irrevocably. It was a love that endured even now.

But almost as quickly as I had been smitten with love for my American, I was just as roundly hit with the conviction that it must be God's will that we were to die then and there on that street.

Apparently, my movie star American did not agree. With a grunt, he scooped me up in his arms and began to sprint in the opposite direction from an on-coming Soviet-made tank that had turned onto the dirt road on which I was sprawled helplessly. My sister was shocked and it took her several seconds to follow behind us as fast as she could. I, too, was shocked that a man who wasn't even a relative was touching me. And he was not only touching me with one arm around my back and the other under my bottom, but he was clutching me so close to himself that I could feel the buttons on his khakis making indents on my skin.

At last we arrived at the American Embassy and Richard shouted to the Marines guarding the iron gate. Whatever he screamed must have been convincing, because they only hesitated a few minutes before gingerly opening a pedetrian door within the enormous gate, itself. Richard slipped through with me affixed to him like a rucksack. Zora followed as close as a shadow and managed to slip into the courtyard of the embassy grounds, as well. I only dimly recall the remainder of that evening as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Zora and Richard --to whom I was affixed like a hump on a lunchback -- were hustled and prodded through the embassy doors, up several flights of stairs to the roof and into a waiting Black Hawk helicopter.

Weak from the loss of blood, I only recall gazing up at Richard's concerned face during a bumpy ride from Kabul to Islamabad. How deeply I fell in love that night. My entire being became focused totally on him and he became to me, my universe.

Once we reached the American military facility near Islamabad, I only faintly recall being transported to the base hospital. Looking back now, I realize Richard must have told them I was a dependent or relative of his. How else was it that I was treated to the tender and thorough care of the young medical staff?

Zora refused to leave my side, partly out of concern for me, but also because we had never either of us been alone in our lives. It was unheard of for a good Muslim girl in my country to be alone. She must have been as afraid as I was, and she spent the first night dozing on and off from a lounge chair placed next to my bed. There was another bed in the room, but she was afraid to lie down in it.

My primary doctor was an African American and the first black person I had ever seen. I had heard that there were sometimes these black people posted at the gates of the American Embassy -- U.S. Marines who were stationed in Kabul and attached to the embassy there. But I had never seen one, myself. And this one actually approached my bedside! I was shocked and amazed. What could I do, I wondered? And I threw the sheet over my head in modesty.

Later that day Richard came to visit. Zora-jan rose to offer him the chair that had been her abode now, for almost 24 hours. He refused, drawing up an aluminum folding chair, instead.

He looked much younger today, now that he was clean and rested. He had a broad, kind face that dimpled mischieviously when he smiled. "The doctor tells me you're trying to hide from him," he grinned, as he settled into his chair striving for a more comfortable position.

But then he leaned forward, his blue eyes growing serious with concern. "I know you would prefer to have a woman doctor," he began. "Unfortunately, it's just not going to be possible. This is a relatively small outpost. We're lucky the U.S. Army has a base here at all. Right now, the important thing is for you to allow the doctor and his staff to help you."

He took a moment to gauge my comprehension. "I'm sorry to say, I don't speak any Farsi, or Dari, as you call it...." His brows knitted into a puzzled expression, as though he was determining how in the world he could make me understand.

I struggled to speak, not realizing how weak I had become in such a short time. I reassured him that my English was sufficient to understand what he was saying. I was very grateful for having taken such an avid interest in learning English in the girl's school. I gazed over at him adoringly. The warmth of his expression made me more anxious than ever to know of my family -- my father, brothers and our servants. What, I wondered, had become of them. Tears welled up in my eyes, spilling over and rolling down my temples.

Richard leaned forward, alarmed that he had upset me somehow. I struggled to speak. "My...my family.... Our house was destroyed," I managed.