Voice of Rebellion. Roberta Staley
you,” Bashir said. “You must go now too! Khuda hafiz—God protect you.”
Bashir watched his former student walk swiftly down the hallway, straight and proud. He leaned against the door, trying to slow his breathing and his heart’s thudding, wiping a trickle of sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve. He could plead an upset stomach to the students. He listened for approaching footsteps from the nearby stairwell or hallways but heard only the soft buzzing of busy classrooms and the droning of instructors.
Bashir opened the door and walked towards his desk. “I am so sorry,” he said. “My lunch isn’t agreeing with me. I am going to have to leave. Please stay here until the bell rings so you don’t disturb the students in the rest of the school. Read chapters five and six at your desk, and we’ll discuss at tomorrow’s lecture.”
Bashir gathered up his papers and textbook and placed them in his faded, worn leather satchel. He walked to the door and turned. “See you tomorrow. I am sure I will feel better by then.” As he left, he could hear an outbreak of murmuring. The students sensed that something was amiss—something more than indigestion.
What if soldiers had already arrived at the university? They would have to go to the main office first, to find out his classroom number. Bashir lengthened his stride, trying not to break into a jog, the satchel bumping hard against his leg. He headed for the stairs leading to a door at the back of the building. Once outside, he could cross the university grounds and hail a taxi. His leather-soled shoes slapping the stairs, Bashir came to a back door at the university, opened it slowly and walked outside, shielding his eyes from the bright sun, peering for military vehicles or soldiers. His fear turned to anger. The director of Kabul Pedagogical Institute, Ghafoor Alipour, had obviously followed up on his threat. A member of Afghanistan’s ruling Communist party, called the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, or PDPA, Ghafoor acted as a spy, monitoring the students and teachers for anti-government dissent. He despised Bashir for his refusal to support the PDPA, as well as Bashir’s criticism of the brutal repression of President Najibullah Ahmadzai’s KHAD security force. Similar to the Soviet Union’s KGB, KHAD had rounded up, then tortured and killed thousands of scholars, judges, teachers, government and diplomatic officials, and members of Islamic organizations. Their arrests had filled Pul-e-Charkhi prison beyond bursting.
Ghafoor had boasted to Bashir that he could have him forcibly conscripted into the Afghan army. Bashir had thought Ghafoor’s threats simple intimidation. Not only was Bashir one year shy of forty, the cutoff date for recruitment, but also his profession as a teacher made him exempt from army duty. But the army was desperate for manpower and had taken to kidnapping teenage boys off the streets of Kabul. They likely wouldn’t balk at enlisting Bashir.
Out on the roadway, Bashir blended in with the few pedestrians scurrying about their business. He walked quickly and when he spotted a yellow-and-white taxi, flagged it down, yanked the door open, and slid gratefully into the dim interior. What was he to do? He didn’t dare go home to his wife, Nasrin, and three children: Mozhdah, five; two-year-old Masee; and the new baby, Safee. Surely that would be the first place the Afghan army would look for him. The only place he could think to hide was at the home of his friend Haider.
“Where do you want to go?” the cabby demanded, staring in his rearview mirror at Bashir, who was lost in thought.
“Sorry,” Bashir mumbled, and blurted out an address.
The driver steered his car into traffic. Bashir let his body sink low in the back seat and kept his head down. When the taxi pulled up to the destination, Bashir handed him several dirty Afghani notes for payment. It was late afternoon. His friend might not be home yet. He slipped out of the cab and, looking nervously left and right, headed into the apartment building.
NASRIN CONTINUED ROCKING Safee in her arms, even though the infant had fallen asleep twenty minutes ago. She paced the living room, watched out the window as the twilight faded into darkness. The window, opaque with dirt, was splintered into a spider web of cracks from the shock waves of bombs that mujahideen guerrillas launched into Kabul daily. Masee played quietly on the living room carpet with toy trucks and cars. Mozhdah, her long-haired five-year-old daughter, played with dolls in her bedroom. Nasrin smiled sadly: the dolls were arguing about who was going to drive to the Gardens of Babur for a picnic. Mozhdah had grown up on stories of the beauty of the gardens, created five hundred years ago by the Mughal emperor Babur. It was a place where families would go for picnics and sit on the grass to eat freshly made bolani—flatbread stuffed with spinach, leeks, or potatoes—mint-flavored yogurt, naan, rice, and almond cookies, called kulche badami, amid the scent of red, pink, and yellow roses and fruit trees. Along with the rest of Kabul, this oasis had been laid to waste.
Mozhdah’s childhood, Nasrin thought bitterly, had been corrupted by nightly bombing raids and the constant threat of death and hunger. For the sake of normalcy, Bashir and Nasrin had started Mozhdah in preschool a few months ago. It was just a few blocks away, and Nasrin; her mother, Tafsira, who lived with them; or another relative would walk Mozhdah to school. Then, one day, Mozhdah’s cousin Najib, who was tall for his age, was kidnapped by Afghan army soldiers after he dropped Mozhdah off. His parents went to the army base to beg for his release, showing proof that he was only fourteen—seven years younger than conscription age. But the final straw was when someone poured poison into the school’s water tank. Mozhdah wasn’t harmed, but Nasrin and Bashir never let her return.
This wasn’t a childhood, Nasrin thought. Mozhdah should be growing up with memories of play and travel, family and feasting, school and learning. Instead, her world consisted of blasted brown earth and rubble, tremors from dropped bombs, screams of terror and agony in the night, flaming buildings, smoke, and machine-gun fire.
Nasrin’s own good memories were fading, and now it was as if they had been only dreams. Before they were married and had children, Bashir and Nasrin would spend their free time exploring the city. They bought fresh naan, cooked to soft perfection in a clay tandoor oven. Packing homemade chutney, yogurt, and fried eggplant, the couple would take a bus to the Gardens of Babur to eat a picnic lunch. They made adventurous plans: Bashir would pursue a PhD at the University of the Philippines, where he had already attained a master’s degree in English, and Nasrin would go with him, leaving Afghanistan for the first time in her life.
The only thing that seemed real anymore was the omnipresent scent of kerosene that fueled the tiny stove Nasrin used to heat water to cook, bathe, and wash dishes and clothes. Life was stripped down to the essentials: find enough food to feed the family, boil water for cleaning and drinking and making tea. Boil water to sanitize Safee’s diapers. Try to keep the children, who spent much of their time indoors, stimulated—and try to comfort them when they were terrorized by the bombardment of missiles, which one nightmarish day reached three hundred hits on the city. Nasrin was grateful for the support and help of one of her brothers, Hafiz, who sometimes brought them extra food. She also relied heavily upon Tafsira’s calm presence and her ability to amuse the children. But the civil war was taking its toll. Bashir had developed asthma from stress, as well as from breathing the air turned gray-brown by smoke from the building fires sparked by missile hits. As the couple lay under the blankets, Nasrin would remain awake, listening to the sharp wheeze of Bashir’s breathing, wondering if this night would be their last.
Surfacing from the depths of her dark musings, Nasrin realized how late Bashir was. What had happened to him? He should have arrived home long ago, perhaps with fresh naan. The children would soon be clamoring for food. Nasrin clutched Safee closer to her chest. Should she go look for Bashir at the university—let them know he was missing? But it was closed by now. And there was the impending curfew.
She went to the kitchen; luckily, there were potatoes in the cupboard.
Mozhdah wandered in. “Where is Daddy?” she demanded.
“He had to stay late at work, Mozhdah jan,” Nasrin said, referring to her with a term of endearment meaning “beloved.” “He has meetings tonight. He won’t be home until later.”
“What about the curfew?” Mozhdah asked.
Although Nasrin and Bashir did their best to hide