For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

take both my sons and go for a long visit.’ I
repeated, ‘Just as we planned.’
    ‘No, Maryam. June is five months away.
Anything could happen. Besides, I don’t want my son there under
these circumstances. Maryam, I do not trust Big Duran with our son.
We cannot risk it.’
    I bit my lip. I did not want to accept that
my oldest son suffered psychological problems and that he was
dangerous. I did not want to reprimand him. I had spent too many
lonely years looking for him to act in a way that might cause him
to turn from me.
    Khalid was emphatic. ‘Listen to me, Maryam.
Your son has hit you. He has thrown things. He is volatile. I think
he could become extremely violent, just like his father. If
something happens to our young son, you will never forgive
yourself.’
    It was clear that Khalid had had enough. And
who could blame him? Although I couldn’t face the idea that Big
Duran was guilty of strangling his younger brother, clearly Khalid
was not of the same opinion.
    But I couldn’t bear to leave my younger son
for such a long period, to leave one son in order to take care of
the other. ‘Let me think, Khalid. We’ll talk about this later.’
    While considering my options, I hired a tutor
to help Duran begin studying for the College Board
examinations.
    ‘No. Not yet,’ Duran protested. ‘I want to
wait until after my vacation is over.’
    ‘Your vacation has long been over, Duran,’ I
exclaimed. ‘It is time for you to start your studies.’
    ‘You are not a mother,’ Duran sneered. ‘You
are too bossy to be a mother. You think you are my father. Well,
you are not!’
    I really did not know what to say to that, so
I said nothing.
    Later that day he was on the telephone again.
By this time I was not ashamed to listen in on my son’s telephone
conversations. I slipped quietly to his door so I could hear
everything. Duran was speaking Pashto. My heart told me he was
speaking to his father, and that they were plotting. Duran’s side
of the conversation was not reassuring. ‘No, not yet,’ he argued.
‘I do not want to do it now. No. No. She has promised to get me my
American birth certificate. Yes. She said she would. Do not worry.
After I get my papers, I will do it.’
    My blood rushed through my veins. Do what?
What was my ex-husband trying to get our son to do?
    I now began to be seriously worried. Had
Kaiss so brainwashed our son that he could convince him to
physically harm me, or my young son?
    Duran and I were sitting in the garden the
following day when he said, ‘I must make a telephone call.’
    ‘Who is it you want to call, son?’
    ‘I have to make a phone call,’ he
repeated.
    He glared at me and stalked away.
    I followed him into the house.
    He dialed a number and began speaking in
Pashto. When he saw me, he turned his back and walked out into the
garden with the phone.
    I stubbornly followed, telling him: ‘If you
are speaking with your father, Duran, I want you to hang up.’
    My beloved son looked at me with hatred,
screaming, ‘The day will come when I will put a knife to your
throat and watch the blood flow from your lifeless body! That is
when this mission will be over!’
    I ran away from my child, my Duran, the child
I had loved with all my heart. Where had my loving baby gone? Who
was this vicious man who called himself my son?
    When Duran finished his conversation, he
walked into the house as though he didn’t have a care in the world,
as though he had not just threatened his mother’s life.
    Still, a mother’s love is difficult to
destroy. I reached out to him, wanting desperately to help my son,
who I knew had grown up in the most wretched way from the day he
was torn from his mother’s arms. How he must have suffered! My
toddler son had lived through brutal beatings, against a background
of insecurity, violence and war, and then later was made to believe
his mother had sold him for money: all this must have contributed
to his violent behavior.
    I must save my son! I must! I tried to reason
with him, to show him I had always loved him, that I had not
abandoned him. My voice rose in despair. ‘Why, my son, why? How can
you hate your mother enough to say such words? Remember that it was
your father who stole you away from me when you were a tiny
toddler. It was your father who beat you. It was your father who
lied to you. While all of that was happening, your grandfather and
I were spending all our money and time trying to locate you, to
bring you